Rose Goes On
by Bohemian Anne
Summary: A companion story to The Calverts, written from Rose's POV.
1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Thursday, April 18, 1912

Freedom.

Rose DeWitt Bukater stood at the railing of the third class deck on the Carpathia, watching the Statue of Liberty come into view. It had represented freedom for a generation of immigrants, and now symbolized the same thing for her.

Freedom.

Rose stood silently at the railing, watching as the lights of New York City became visible, even in the pouring rain. Other people stood beneath umbrellas, or huddled inside, seeking shelter from the storm, but Rose welcomed the pounding rain and the bursts of thunder and lightening. She had done it. She had survived.

In the three days since the Titanic sank, there had been many times when she was not so certain she would survive. When she had let go of Jack's hand and watched him sink into the depths of the North Atlantic, she hadn't wanted to survive. But she had remembered her promise, and had swum to Officer Wilde, using the dead man's whistle to alert the boat to her presence.

Over the days that followed, she had hidden from everyone, staying in steerage with a hundred grieving widows, avoiding everyone and everything she had known before. There had been a tense moment when Cal had come down to steerage, searching for her, but she had covered her head with a blanket, successfully hiding herself from him. She hadn't seen him since.

As the ship had moved ever closer to America, she had battled against the pain and grief of her loss, wishing, more than once, that it had been she who had frozen to death in the bitterly cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean. That same cold seemed to always be with her, no matter how tightly she wrapped her coat—Cal's coat—around herself, or how many blankets she had been covered in. She had mourned with Titanic's other widows, for that was how she saw herself now, as a widow. She had known Jack for only three days, but he had touched her soul in a way that no one else could.

And yet, as the first faint outlines of the New York coast had become visible, she had realized that, in spite of everything, she was glad to be alive. Alive—and free. Freedom. The gift that Jack had given her. She could never return to her old world, but she was alive, and she would go on.

The rain continued to pour as the ship docked at Pier 54. The first class passengers were let off first, followed by those of second class. Rose stepped back into the crowd of steerage passengers waiting to disembark, shielding herself from sight. By the time the third class passengers were allowed to leave, most of the first and second class passengers had disappeared, vanished into the crowd or whisked off to hotels, trains, or homes.

No one recognized Rose as she stepped from the gangway and followed the other third class passengers to where they were being processed. As she huddled deeper into her coat against the chill rain, an officer stopped beside her, his clipboard shielded by a large black umbrella.

"Can I get your name, please, love?" he asked, pen poised over the sheaf of papers.

It slipped out before Rose thought about it. "Dawson. Rose Dawson."

"Thank you." The officer walked away, asking other survivors for their names.

Rose dug her hands deep into her pockets, realizing what she had just done. She had completely cut her ties with her old life. Rose DeWitt Bukater had died with the Titanic, and in her place a new, stronger woman had been born—Rose Dawson.

Neither Ruth nor Cal would ever track her down now. No one would think to look for Rose DeWitt Bukater, high society debutante, in the persona of Rose Dawson, Titanic steerage survivor. If she had had any doubts about the path she had chosen in life, they had been put to rest at the moment she had given her new name.

Would Jack have wanted her to take his name? she wondered. They had been together for such a short time, but in those brief hours she had come to love him, and although he had never said the words, she knew that he had loved her, too. He had sacrificed so much for her, giving up his chance of survival so that she might live. She was his widow, in all ways that counted, and now his name was hers. Jack was gone, but he lived on within her heart.

Rose's fingers clenched, pulling the baggy coat closer against her body. As she huddled deeper into the warm garment, her fingers brushed against something hard and cold. Surprised, she pulled it from her pocket, wondering what it was.

The Heart of the Ocean sparkled in the faint light, the facets of the fifty-six carat diamond picking up and reflecting the smallest flashes of light. Rose looked at it in amazement. The gaudy, heavy jewel that Cal had given her, that Jack had drawn her wearing, had survived the sinking. Cal had put it in the coat before putting the coat on her.

A magnesium flash from a nearby reporter's camera startled her. Quickly, she slipped the diamond back into her pocket. Taking advantage of the distraction, she slipped away into the crowd, walking purposefully onward, her stride never breaking.

Soon, she had left the crowd behind, and the darkened streets of New York City swallowed her. A few streetlights shone in the gloom, but otherwise it was as dark as the sea she had survived. She walked briskly along the sidewalk, with no idea of where she was going. She had never been in this part of the city before, but she kept walking, farther and farther away from the clamor on the pier.

At last, her footsteps slowed, and she looked around her, not knowing where she was, or where she might go. In the distance, the faint sounds of the crowd could still be heard, but she turned resolutely away from them, continuing into the city.

She needed shelter and food, but she had no money, nor any way of getting any until morning came and she found a place to pawn the diamond. Her heart clenched at the thought. Cal had given her the diamond, but Jack had drawn her wearing it, and it was the only tangible reminder she had of what they had shared. Still, she needed to survive, and sometimes survival meant making hard choices.

She passed a lighted sign advertising a small hotel, and looked longingly at it. If only she could afford a night's stay there. It wasn't what she had been accustomed to, but it would be warm and dry, shelter against the raging elements.

Shrugging and pulling her coat more closely around her, she walked on, looking for some sort of shelter, no matter how crude. If hardship was the price of freedom, she would gladly pay it. She might be cold and hungry, but she was no longer trapped in a life of someone else's choosing. Whatever happened from now on, it was her decision, whatever the consequences.

Farther up the street, Rose found a bench under an overhang. Settling down on it, she pulled her feet in and pulled the collar of the coat up around her neck. She was still wet and cold, but the bench was drier than anything around, and at least she had the coat to keep her warm.

Another lighted hotel stood just a block up the street, beckoning to her, but Rose huddled into the coat and ignored the lights. She had no way to pay for a room, and she needed to be grateful for what shelter she had found. Many homeless people were not so lucky.

Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, Rose was surprised to feel a thick, wet mass inside the coat—one on each side. Reaching inside the coat, she felt the hidden inner pockets.

Looking around to make sure no one was looking, she dug into the pockets, at last extracting two bundles of money. In the darkness, she couldn't tell how much it was, but it was a considerable amount, knowing Cal.

Rose peeled a few bills from one of the bundles and tucked them into an outer coat pocket, placing the rest of the money back in the inner pockets. She could afford shelter now. Putting her hands in her pockets, she debated which hotel to try first.

She looked up, startled, as a man with two small children and a dog sat down on the opposite end of the bench from her. One of the children was coughing fretfully, having apparently been out in the cold and the rain for far too long. Rose looked at the bedraggled group, and dismissed the man as a threat. She doubted that he would attack her with two little girls in tow. Rose pulled her knees up to her chin, still debating where to go.

The man pulled the children into his lap and set the puppy on the bench beside him. One of the little girls put her head on the man's shoulder and closed her eyes, while the one who had been coughing fretted irritably.

Rose's heart went out to the children. Why did the man have them out in the rain? Why didn't he find shelter for them?

He might also be homeless, Rose realized. He had settled as far back under the overhang as possible, and had opened his coat, wrapping the two girls in it as much as he could. He put his arms around them for further warmth, while the sodden puppy put its head on the man's knee, looking sorrowful.

She wished that she could help them, but didn't know how. She didn't know how much money she had, or how long it would last her. They might not even want help, she reflected. Some people had too much pride to accept charity, which could explain what they were doing on the streets in this weather when there were homeless shelters available.

Putting her hands deep in her pockets, Rose put her feet on the ground. Making a decision, she got up, intent upon reaching the hotel a block away.

The little girl who had been fretting looked up as she stood. "Hi," she said, looking at her.

Rose looked at the sodden, bedraggled child. She looked as though she, too, had survived the Titanic. "Hello," she responded, peering at the toddler.

The man hushed the child. "Shh," he told her. "Don't bother the lady."

"Mommy's fend," the girl protested, pointing to Rose.

"No, Mary. Your Mommy didn't know her."

Rose looked at the girl. She seemed vaguely familiar for some reason. "What was your Mommy's name, sweetie?"

The little girl screwed up her face, thinking. "Mirim," she announced triumphantly after a moment.

"Miriam?"

"Uh-huh." Mary looked up at her sadly. "Mommy died."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Mary. Is this your Daddy?"

"Uh-huh. And Nada, and Egro."

Rose looked at her in confusion, trying to translate the children gibberish into English.

"Nadia and Allegro," the man explained. "I'm John."

"I'm Rose." Suddenly, Rose recognized him. She had seen him only once, when she had attended the party in steerage, but he had been sitting next to her old acquaintance Miriam, who had given up the high society life in favor of the simpler, more honest working class life. John Calvert, Miriam's husband.

"Rose DeWitt Bukater?"

Rose was a little surprised that he remembered her, but perhaps Miriam had told him who he was. She had certainly been visible that night. Not many first class women came down to steerage, danced, and got drunk on cheap beer.

"Rose Dawson," she told him, in a voice that brooked no argument. "And, unless I miss my guess, you're John Calvert, the husband of Miriam Anders Calvert." She looked at him sympathetically. "I'm sorry to hear she didn't make it."

"Thank you," he replied, a look of sorrow passing over his features. "What are you doing out here in the street? What happened to your fiancé?"

Rose looked at him, her face carefully blank. "Suffice it to say I am not with him, nor will I be again. As to what I am doing out here, I am looking for a hotel. There are two inexpensive ones on this street."

"Are they still accepting guests at this hour?"

"If they aren't full, they will be. If they are, I suppose I will have to look farther. You should think about doing the same. Those children shouldn't be out in the cold like this, especially after Titanic. If you can't afford a hotel, there's a Red Cross shelter just three blocks that way." She remembered overhearing some rescue workers telling people about the shelter, and had glimpsed a carriage full of survivors making its way to the shelter as she had walked along the streets. The carriage had stopped in front of an old building, showing her the location of the shelter. She had briefly considered going there, but hadn't wanted to spend another night with the weeping, sorrowing survivors of the Titanic.

"They've taken some of the Titanic survivors there," she added. "They would probably give you shelter and some food."

"I can afford a hotel. Where are these hotels you mentioned?"

Rose pointed to the two hotels she had seen, gesturing to the one just a block away. "That's where I'm going to try first."

"If you don't mind, I'm going to tag along."

Rose stiffened, eyeing him suspiciously. Did he think she was going to pay for a room for him, or offer him any favors? If he did, he was in for a big surprise.

"I need to find a room for the night," he explained. "You're right, the girls don't need to be out in the rain. I'm not trying to follow you, but that hotel looks to be the nearest one, and I need to get them inside before they get sick."

Rose was still suspicious, but little Mary coughed, her tiny face turning red from the exertion. Rose was immediately concerned.

"Is she ill?"

"She just recovered from pneumonia, and I don't want her getting it again. She nearly drowned when the ship went down," John explained.

"Oh, how terrible! Hurry, then." She held out her arms. "Let me carry one of them."

John stood, giving Mary to Rose to carry. He picked up Nadia and took the puppy's leash, walking down the street beside her.

Mary clung to Rose's coat, shivering. Rose held her more securely, trying to warm the child. The little girl looked up at her, reaching to touch her tangled red curls.

"You pretty," she told Rose, looking at her admiringly.

"Thank you, Mary. You're very pretty, too." Rose smiled at the toddler.

Mary grinned back at her, then began coughing again. Rose walked faster, cradling the miserable child. John kept pace with her as they hurried toward the hotel.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Within a few minutes, the small, ragged group had reached the hotel. Mary's head drooped sleepily against Rose's shoulder, and she continued to cough fretfully.

The small hotel looked like paradise in comparison with the cold, dark streets. It was brightly lit and warm, and Rose felt better the moment she stepped inside. It was nothing like the hotels she was accustomed to, but it was warm and dry, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

The desk clerk stared at the sodden people in their tattered clothes, frowning as the puppy waddled to the end of his leash and shook himself, spraying water everywhere.

"Ah...sir," he began, looking at John. "You aren't allowed to bring dogs in here with you."

Rose eyed the thin, tired-looking man balefully. What did he expect John to do with the puppy? Leave it out in the rain? Take a long walk through the rain with two small, exhausted children to find another hotel? There hadn't been any signs proclaiming whether pets were permitted or not, either outside or in the lobby.

"Oh, come now. How much is one tiny puppy going to hurt things?" She looked at the small animal, then at the shivering children.

The puppy waddled back over to John and lay down at his feet, falling asleep. John set Nadia down, watching as the little girl crouched down to pet the sleeping puppy.

The clerk eyed the ragged group. Rose eyed him back, wondering if he was going to turn them away. Mary was coughing again, and Nadia curled up on the floor, her head pillowed on Allegro.

"All right," he told them. "But that animal had better not make any noise, or leave a mess on the floor."

Rose nodded in relief. She hadn't thought the man would send them back out on the streets, but she hadn't been sure.

"How much for a room?" John asked the desk clerk.

"Two dollars," he replied, looking at them as though he wasn't sure they had that much money.

"We'll need two rooms," Rose told him, realizing how inappropriate it would be to share a room with a strange man, even if he did have two small children with him. She wasn't entirely certain that she could trust John, anyway. He seemed decent enough, but she had only just met him some twenty minutes earlier.

"There's only one available," the desk clerk told her, wondering why they needed two rooms. They looked to be a small, impoverished family. Maybe more was going on than met the eye.

Rose looked at John. She didn't relish the thought of walking out on the streets again, but she couldn't expect him to leave with the two little girls in need of shelter.

John leaned over to whisper to her. "How large are American hotel rooms?"

"I don't know. I've only stayed in expensive hotels." She paused, thinking. "You take the room. The girls need a place to sleep."

"I can't send you back out into the rain like that."

"There's only one room available, and the children need it more than I do."

"The only other option I can think of is to share."

Rose looked at John, the shivering toddlers, and the sleeping puppy. He seemed harmless enough, and certainly there were adequate chaperones. Still, it had long been emphasized to her that a single woman did not share a room with a man, especially a strange man. She was ready to refuse, and then realized that she was continuing to think as she had been taught. What was wrong with sharing a room, if no questionable activities took place? She certainly wouldn't try to seduce him, and she didn't think he would attack her. She no longer had a reputation to protect. No one knew her, except for the man standing beside her with the two tiny girls.

"One of us would have to sleep on the floor," she told him, gauging his reaction. If he thought she would share a bed with him, she would leave immediately, children or no children.

"I will," he told her. The arrangement went against his ideas of propriety, but with the girls desperately in need of shelter, he had little choice.

Rose dug into her pocket, extracting one of the bills she had placed there, a twenty. _Not surprising_, she thought. Cal would never stuff his pockets with anything less.

"I will pay fifty cents," she told John, handing the bill to the clerk, who gaped at it, surprised that such an impoverished looking woman had so much money. "And you will pay a dollar fifty, since three members of the group are yours."

He nodded in agreement, reaching into the lining of his coat and extracting a bill. "What is this?"

Rose looked at him strangely. "It's money."

He sighed, looking at her impatiently. "I know that. But how does it relate to one dollar and fifty cents?"

She looked at the bill he held out. "That's a five dollar bill. You'll get three dollars and fifty cents in change. There are one hundred cents in a dollar," she explained, at his confused look.

He nodded and handed the money to the desk clerk, who looked at them strangely, not understanding why they wanted to pay separately.

"We don't allow any funny goings-on around here," he told them, pushing the money back to them.

"Don't worry about it. Rose is—"

Rose smiled, interrupting him. "I'm his sister. We prefer to keep our bills separate."

She put on her brightest smile, trying to convince him that what she said was true, though there was no resemblance between herself and John.

Still looking a bit skeptical, the clerk took the money and made change, then gave them the key. John and Rose escorted the sleepy children and whining puppy up the stairs.

There was no question about the children sleeping in the bed; after their ordeal on the Titanic, they couldn't be expected to sleep on the hard wood floor. The puppy tried desperately to jump up on the bed with them, whimpering in frustration until John picked him up and set him between the two girls.

"Are you going to sleep beside them, or shall I?" Rose asked him, looking at the sleeping children and dog. A soft, warm bed sounded good at the moment, but she was leery of sleeping beside two children barely out of infancy. She wondered if they were potty-trained yet.

John took an extra blanket from a closet shelf. "You can take the bed," he told her. "I can sleep on the floor."

Rose looked at him suspiciously. They're your family. You should stay beside them."

"I'm more used to uncomfortable conditions than you are. You've probably never slept anywhere that wasn't comfortable."

He was right, she conceded, but she still wasn't sure she wanted to sleep next to a pair of two-year-olds. Then she shrugged mentally. She was already wet from the rain, and dirty from having worn the same clothes since the sinking, and sleeping beside the girls wouldn't make much difference.

"All right." She shrugged off her coat and hung it on a hook in the closet, placing her ruined shoes beneath it. "I'll take the bed."

Rose crawled beneath the covers, trying to find a comfortable position as far from the sleeping children as possible. She wished she could remove her cold, damp silk dress as well, but it wouldn't be appropriate with John in the room, even if she kept her slip on. She pulled the covers up over herself and the children, shivering.

She was surprised at how tired she was, now that she had a chance to rest. Her walk through the streets had kept her alert, as had the cold, damp weather, but now she realized just how tired she truly was. Forgetting that she was sharing a bed with two toddlers, she closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep.

*****

Nadia's whimpers awakened Rose at sunrise. Still curled up asleep beside her, the child was crying and calling out in an unfamiliar language.

Rose didn't know who Nadia was calling for, but suspected that it was someone she had lost on the ship. She wasn't sure about the Calvert family, but she didn't think Nadia belonged to John. There was no resemblance between the two, and Mary was so close in age that she was certain that the children did not share a mother.

She shook the little girl gently, waking her. Nadia stared up at her, startled, as Allegro crawled over and placed his head in the toddler's lap.

"Are you all right?" Rose whispered to Nadia, pulling her into her lap.

Nadia stared at her uncomprehendingly, her dark eyes still filled with tears, before curling up into a ball in Rose's lap and hugging the dog to her.

Rose sighed, rocking the child, not knowing what to make of this situation she had found herself in.

*****

After rocking Nadia back to sleep, Rose slept for a few more hours herself, awakening to light shining in the dusty window. The toddlers were still asleep, though the dog sat up when she did, yawning and putting his head down to lick his belly.

She looked down at the floor as she heard John stirring, disentangling himself from the blanket. He didn't look nearly so rested as she did, and she felt guilty for a moment that she had taken the bed and left him to sleep on the hard wood floor. Her worries about waking up in a wet bed had proven unfounded; both toddlers had stayed dry during the night.

She got out of bed, yawning, and looked with distaste at her wrinkled, tattered dress. It had once been an elegant evening gown, but now she doubted if it was good for much more than the trash heap. Still, it was all she had, and she would have to wear it until she find some more suitable clothing.

Slipping from the room, Rose left John to take care of the children, making her way down the hall to the bathroom. Looking at herself in the mirror, she grimaced. Her hair hung in snarls, and her dress was stained from her time in the ocean. At least she was drier than she had been the night before, and the rain had stopped, she thought. Pulling her hair back, she combed her fingers through it until most of the tangles were gone, and smoothed her dress as best she could. Satisfied at last, she went back to the hotel room.

John had wakened the girls and dressed them, their clothes now dry after hanging in the closet all night. Rose slipped on her still slightly damp shoes, and tossed the damp coat over her arm. The heavy wool would take a long time to dry out.

John was finishing getting Nadia ready for the day when Mary toddled up to Rose and tugged on her skirt. "Aunt Wosie? I hungy."

"You're hungry, Mary?" She looked at John. "So am I. As soon as your daddy is finished taking care of Nadia, we'll all go get some breakfast. Does that sound good?"

"Uh-huh." Mary examined Rose's dress. "Pretty."

"Thank you, Mary." John had finished getting Nadia dressed. "Shall we find a place to eat?" she asked him.

"Yes. We'd better. The girls haven't eaten since mid-afternoon yesterday."

The group checked out of the hotel, much to the relief of the desk clerk, who had feared they would stay until the manager returned and caught them with the dog. The made their way to a small, inexpensive restaurant two buildings down from the hotel.

Mary and Nadia ate hungrily, uncaring of what it was they ate. The restaurant did not serve child-sized portions, so John had ordered one breakfast and split it between the two. He and Rose each ate their own meals.

When he had finished eating, John left the girls in Rose's care and slipped behind the building, untying Allegro from where he had been left out front. While he was digging through the garbage for scraps to feed the hungry puppy, Rose helped the girls finish eating.

Mary ate about a third of what was on her plate—the portions were generous even for an adult, and were far more than a two-year-old could consume, even when split with another child. Nadia ate less, but still made a sizable dent in the pile of food. Both little girls were hungry, though they ate slowly, Nadia examining some of the strange new foods, and Mary chattering to Rose and admiring her.

When they had finished eating, Rose requested a doggie bag and dumped the leftovers from the girls' breakfasts as well as her own into it, then closed the bag and set it aside for the Calverts. She had counted the money in her pockets, and had enough to last her a while, but she had no idea how much money John had, and thought that they might have need of the leftover food.

John had already paid his bill, when he went outside to find food for the dog, so Rose quickly paid her bill and led the girls outside, stopping to buy a couple of pieces of penny candy for them first. The children sucked contentedly on the peppermint sticks, which she wasn't sure was quite appropriate for breakfast, but they were enjoying themselves so much that she didn't have the heart to tell them to wait until later.

John had just reached the front of the restaurant when Rose stepped out. "Here," she told him, handing him the bag of leftovers. "For later."

He nodded, taking the bag. It was more full than he expected from the toddlers' leftovers, and he suspected that Rose had donated her own leftovers, but he didn't object. The children needed to eat, and he wasn't sure how long the money he had was going to last.

He sighed when he saw the candy sticks in the girls' hands, but let the matter rest. Mary gave him a peppermint-stained grin, waving her sticky candy. He glanced at Rose, wondering what her plans were now.

"Where are you going now?" Rose asked him, handing the toddlers over to him.

"Ah...actually..." John showed Rose the twenty dollar bill that the note was written on. Rose couldn't help but smile when she saw it. Only Miriam would have used money for note paper. "Would you happen to know where this is?"

She looked at the address. The area was familiar, one that she had visited a few times with her mother, but she wasn't sure how to get there from where they were in New York City. This wasn't a part of the city she had ever frequented before, and she wasn't sure of the location of anything except for the pier she had left the night before and the hotel she had slept in.

"Um...first you need to find out where in the city you are."

"Don't you know?"

"We're a few blocks from Pier 54. That's all I know. This isn't the sort of place I'm used to frequenting."

"Well, where can we find out where we are?"

"Anywhere around, I suppose. Maybe we should ask in the restaurant. Someone working there might know what part of the city this is."

After John had stepped back inside and asked where they were, Rose was able to orient herself better. "You need to take the El east," she told him. "Ask which train will go closest to that neighborhood."

"Where is the El?"

"It's about three blocks from here." She pointed the way. "I saw it last night when I was wandering the streets."

"Be careful about wandering the streets. You never who might be out there."

"I know. I'll be careful."

"You can come with us, if you want."

Rose shook her head, thinking of the upper class neighborhood they were going to. The last thing she needed was to suddenly reappear in such a neighborhood, especially when some of her mother's friends might see her.

"No. I have other things to do. I think my first step will be to find a job."

John nodded. "Well, thank you, Rose, for helping with the children and giving some idea of where I'm going." He bent down and picked up the toddlers. "Tell her thank you for the candy, you two," he told them.

"Thanks, Aunt Wosie," Mary told her, grinning widely. Nadia just looked at her in confusion.

"You're welcome, Mary—and Nadia," she added, chucking the silent girl under the chin. "Maybe I'll run across you sometime."

"Bye, Aunt Wosie."

"Good-bye, Mary, Nadia. Good-bye, John. It was no trouble helping with the girls. They're very sweet."

That said, she turned and walked away, heading down the street, coat still slung over her arm. She glanced back once, to see John walking away down the street, the toddlers balanced on his hips. Sighing, she walked resolutely onward, scanning the businesses around her.

It was time to find a job.


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Rose walked slowly down the sidewalk, looking back and forth at the establishments lining the street. A job could be difficult to find, she knew. She had few skills, at least those skills needed for the type of work she was seeking. She had never had to cook, clean, or sew, though she had some knowledge of cooking and sewing, and she had to avoid any place that might be frequented by members of the upper class. The last thing she needed was to be seen by someone she knew. She had no doubt that her mother and Cal had already told everyone they knew about her death, and if one of their acquaintances saw her, they wouldn't hesitate to report her whereabouts.

Her steps slowed as she caught sight of a Help Wanted sign in a restaurant window. She no experience serving food or washing dishes, but she was sure that she could learn quickly enough. She had seen food being served, and it didn't look difficult.

Opening the door, Rose stopped in front of the counter, looking around. Several waitresses moved amongst the customers, and the door to the kitchen swung open and closed as people went in and out. A dark-haired woman wearing an apron saw her standing at the counter and came to greet her.

"Can I help you?" she asked, eyeing Rose oddly.

"Ah...yes. I saw the Help Wanted sign in the window, and I'm here about the job..."

"Let me get the manager." She disappeared into the kitchen, returning a moment later with a tall, heavy-set man wearing an apron and a chef's hat.

Rose held out her hand. He shook it gingerly, looking her over.

"I'm here about the job," she told him, wondering at the look he was giving her.

"I don't think this establishment is the place for you," he told her bluntly.

"Whyever not?"

"We have a certain level of standards to be upheld here."

Annoyed that he hadn't even asked her about her skills before dismissing her, Rose protested, "Sir—"

"No. I'm not hiring you." He turned and walked back into the kitchen.

The hostess escorted her to the door.

"I really would be a good worker," Rose told her, resisting the woman's attempts to push her out the door.

"Out. Or I'm calling the police." Several patrons stared at Rose suspiciously.

Rose turned and walked out the door, not wanting to push the woman farther than she already had. Upset by the reaction of the people in the restaurant, and puzzled, she hurried down the street, still scanning the businesses for Help Wanted signs.

Why had they been so rude to her? she wondered. No one had ever been that rude to her before, except for Cal, and even he had covered it with a gentlemanly facade.

Well, she reassured herself, she had only looked for a job in one establishment. She couldn't expect to be successful every time, and that was certainly one restaurant she wouldn't visit once she had employment.

Her confidence renewed, Rose continued her search, only to be rejected again and again. After the fourth employer had turned her down, she began to wonder if she was going about her search in the wrong way. Perhaps she was asking the wrong people for employment, or coming in the wrong entrance. Perhaps the places she had asked for jobs at were looking to hire men, not women.

She stopped, another idea about the reason for her lack of success occurring to her. Catching sight of her reflection in a shop window, she realized just how disreputable she looked. Her long, tangled red hair hung loose down her back, and her once elegant gown was stained and tattered. Her ruined shoes peeked out from under the shredded hem of her dress.

It was no wonder people had looked at her suspiciously, she thought. She looked like a homeless beggar searching for a handout. Even though she was asking for legitimate employment, she didn't look like someone a person would want to hire. She looked dirty and bedraggled.

More glad than ever for the money Cal had inadvertently given her, Rose temporarily gave up her search for a job. She wasn't likely to succeed, looking like she did, and she had no other clothes to wear, nor anyplace to go when night came. She needed decent clothing and a place to stay, if she could find one.

Resolutely, she walked down a side street, getting away from the area where people might recognize her. Scanning the small businesses along the street, she caught sight of a secondhand store on the corner and made her way there.

The sales clerk wrinkled her nose when she first saw Rose, but when Rose dug into her coat pocket and brought out a twenty dollar bill, the clerk was far more willing to help her shop.

"Can I help you find anything?"

Rose grimaced inwardly, realizing how important money was, no matter what sort of places she frequented. Greed was not limited to the upper class, and money could buy her enough respectability to not be thrown out of the dusty shop.

"I need to buy some clothes—dresses, undergarments, that sort of thing."

"Of course. We have clothing that might fit you over here."

Rose followed her, looking through the racks of used clothing. She had never worn anything but the newest, latest fashions before, but beggars couldn't be choosers, and the simple clothes would be far more practical than the expensive garments she had worn in her old life.

After digging through the clothes and trying several things on, Rose selected two sets of undergarments, two simple dresses, and a skirt and blouse set. After paying for her purchases, she slipped back into the fitting room and changed into one of the new dresses, stuffing her old clothes into the shopping bag.

Looking with distaste at her shoes, she closed up her bags and headed to the rack of shoes she had seen at the back of the store. The sales clerk followed her, as though afraid that she would steal something.

Rose searched through the shoes, trying to find a decent pair that would fit her. Most of the shoes were well-worn, not much better than the ones she was trying to replace, but at last she found a slightly scuffed pair of flat, high-button shoes that fit her.

Glad to be out from under the sales clerk's suspicious eyes, Rose paid for the shoes and a buttonhook, put them on, and hurried from the store. On the next street, she found a small emporium with reasonable prices, and purchased a brush, hairpins, and a simple hat. Ignoring the stares of passers-by, she stood in front of the window, using the reflection from the glass to untangle her hair and pin it into a respectable looking style. Putting the hat on her head, she continued on her way.

Her next order of business was to find a place to stay. Not knowing where else to look, Rose started by looking at the apartments in the area.

She was soon set straight. The apartments in the area, though not so expensive as the ones that members of the upper class lived in, were well beyond her means. She had the money to pay for an apartment initially, but she needed to save as much as she could of the money she had, in case she was unable to find work, and she doubted that she could continue to pay for one of the apartments on the salary she thought she might command.

The first apartment building she asked at was enough to let her know that a private apartment was unaffordable. After seeing a Room To Let sign, she stopped and knocked at the landlord's door.

"I saw your Room To Let sign, and I would be interested in seeing the apartment."

The landlord looked her over, taking in her worn shoes and simple clothing, but allowed her to look at the apartment.

It consisted of two bedrooms, a living room, a small bathroom, and a kitchen. Rose was delighted until she learned the cost.

"How much is the rent?"

"Fifteen dollars a month."

"Fifteen dollars?" That was a lot of money, considering that she was unemployed and had to pay for necessities.

The landlord rolled his eyes at her look of dismay. "You won't find many apartments for less, unless you want to try the tenements."

"Ah...thank you, anyway. I think I'll try that."

Rose left the building quickly, wondering where to go next. She wasn't sure where the tenements were, and from what she had heard, they were chiefly filled with immigrants. She was an American, and wasn't sure that she would be accepted in one of the immigrant neighborhoods—if she even afford a tenement apartment.

As she made her way down yet another street, Rose saw another option that she hadn't realized before—boarding houses. With her limited experience, the thought of trying to find a single room had never occurred to her. Hoping that a single room would cost less than an apartment, she began knocking at the doors of the boarding houses, hoping to find a place to stay.

When she got to the third boarding house, she got her first bit of luck that day. There was a room available, at a cost of nine dollars a month. It was much cheaper than the apartment would have been, and the small room contained a bed and a battered dresser. There were hooks on the back of the door that she could use to hang her clothes, and two meals a day were served, breakfast and dinner.

After paying four dollars and fifty cents for the rest of April's rent, Rose locked the door to her room and unpacked her few belongings. It was growing late, too late in the day to continue her search for work, but at least she now had decent clothes and a place to live. She would begin her job search again in the morning.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Rose continued her job search for the next two weeks. Every inquiry she made was met with the same answer—no. She did not have the kind of experience employers wanted, nor did she possess any references. She couldn't tell anyone what schools she had gone to, for fear that they would check her credentials and find that no Rose Dawson had ever attended those schools, or worse yet, realize that she was actually Rose DeWitt Bukater, and send her back to her old life.

There were jobs she could have done, jobs that she had the education for, but many of them required interaction with members of the upper class, and she could not take the risk that a member of her old crowd would find her.

After two weeks, Rose's luck changed, at least temporarily. She was hired to work in a clothing factory in a slum area. The pay was poor and the hours long, but she so desperately needed work that she ignored these things.

It was a mistake. Rose lacked the physical stamina necessary for the job. She had not been brought up in a way that encouraged the ability to work hard for hours at a time; the life of an upper class woman seldom involved hard physical labor. She had been hired to sew dresses, but her sewing skills were insufficient, and she could not keep up with the demand for three dresses sewn together each hour, and she wound up taking work home at night in a desperate attempt to finish it. She was required to work between twelve and fifteen hours a day, depending upon how much work there was, and she soon became exhausted by the unending demands. It was a sweatshop, nothing more, and the money she made there was barely enough to pay her rent and buy a little food. She worked seven days a week, leaving her with no time to seek another job—if one could even be found.

Many of Rose's coworkers were recent immigrants who spoke little or no English, and did not understand that the way they were being treated was unfair. Many had left behind far worse circumstances and were grateful for whatever they could get, but Rose had seen another way of life, and she chafed at the harsh treatment she received. Her pay was docked twice because she was unable to keep up with the workload, and the foreman often stood over her, berating her for her slowness, thereby slowing her work further.

Even those women who were experienced seamstresses often had trouble keeping up with the workload, but they struggled to do as much as they could. Many had families at home who needed the money they brought in to pay the rent and buy food. There were a number of children working in the factory as well, some as young as four or five years old. The work of entire families was often needed to keep the family members fed and sheltered.

There was another problem that Rose encountered. The foreman had taken an immediate interest in her when she began work, suggesting that she meet him for lunch, or go somewhere with him after the work day was over. Rose had immediately distrusted the leering expression on his face, and turned him down every time, but he persisted in his interest. Other women had faced the same problem with him. Some had given in to him, others had found ways to circumvent his interest, but Rose had little experience with such men, and didn't know quite how to handle him.

Things came to a head the fifth day she was working there. The foreman had been standing over her, berating her as he often did, when he leaned and whispered a suggestion as to how she could make her workload lighter. As he did so, he allowed his hands to run over her shoulders suggestively, moving lower as he spoke.

Rose had had enough.

"What part of 'NO' don't you understand?" she shouted, shoving his hands away, and whirling around to face him. "Leave me alone and let me work!"

"You'd better watch your mouth." The foreman's voice was low and dangerous.

"Stay away from me. I've already told you I'm not interested."

"Whoever said I was interested in you?"

"You did!" Rose's voice was growing ever louder.

"I don't think so, little rich girl." At Rose's shocked expression, he smiled. "How do you expect to be treated, coming in every day and trying to slow the work down, not pulling your weight around here?"

"The world's greatest seamstress would have trouble pulling her weight around here," Rose responded, rising from her seat and glaring at him. He was a short man, and she could look him straight in the eye.

"No one else complains about the workload."

"No one else has the courage."

"If you don't like it, you can leave."

Rose's mouth snapped open and shut for a moment, as she stood there, undecided. Her position was precarious, and she could be replaced very easily. She desperately needed the job, but she knew that she couldn't keep up. What was the use in further trying? She would undoubtedly be fired soon enough anyway. But she needed the job for as long as she could keep it. It was the only bit of success she'd had since arriving in New York City. Where would she be without this job?

She looked around. A number of women had stopped working and were staring at her, some shocked that she would openly defy the foreman, others wearing pleased expressions as the hated supervisor stared at her in surprise, unused to having his authority challenged.

"Sit down and get back to work," he told her, grabbing her arm and shoving her back into her seat. "I'll expect you to have those dresses completed as usual."

Something in Rose snapped. She couldn't tolerate this treatment! There was no reason why anyone should have to tolerate it.

Defiantly, she stood back up. "I quit," she told him, pushing past him. "I'll just collect my pay and be on my way."

"You don't get paid until the end of the week," he told her. "If you leave now, you're not getting paid at all."

"You owe me for the days I've worked."

"No one owes you anything. You haven't done half the work you should have. You're lucky we've allowed to continue working this long."

One of the other women tugged on Rose's skirt. As Rose looked down at her, she whispered in broken English, "Pay office near entrance. They pay now. Not listen to him." She gave the foreman a defiant look, as though daring him to do anything. She was the fastest, most experienced person on the floor, and he couldn't turn her out without incurring his boss's wrath.

"Thank you," Rose told her. Stalking away, she ignored the stares and whispers. If these women were willing to work like slaves, she couldn't do anything about it. But she wouldn't stay in these conditions. Better to go hungry than to work day after day in the cramped, dirty, poorly lit factory with the lecherous foreman harassing her.

Rose collected her small amount of money before she left. The amount was not quite enough to cover her rent in the boarding house for the next month. She still had most of Cal's money left, and she could always sell the necklace if worse came to worst, but after that, if she couldn't find work, what would she do?

Resolutely, Rose opened the factory door and stepped outside, back into the world of unemployment.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

May 10, 1912

Rose continued her job search that afternoon and the next day. In spite of the fact that she now had some work experience, she was still unable to find another job. It was with a sense of urgency that she walked from place to place, trying to find employment. She didn't have the luxury of being out of work for weeks. Her situation was too precarious.

At the end of the long, fruitless day of job searching, Rose was walking tiredly back in the direction of her boarding house. She was hungry, but wasn't sure she should spend the money for some extra food. She had been living on two meals a day, and that would have to suffice until she found a job that paid enough for her to live on.

Lost in thought, she made her way down the steps of the soot-streaked factory building she had asked for work at. The factory had been understaffed, but they wanted people with more experience than her, even though she had assured them that she learned very quickly and wouldn't slow things down. Their answer had still been the same.

What was she going to do? She couldn't go back to the sweatshop she had quit, and it wouldn't have paid enough to cover her few expenses. She could always try working for another sweatshop, but she knew that she didn't have the stamina to keep up with the work, or the tolerance to put up with slave-driving bosses. But she had to do something, and soon.

Her eyes turned downward, Rose didn't notice the man walking quickly along the sidewalk until she collided with him, almost falling. He quickly reached to steady her.

"Excuse me," he told her.

Rose quickly pulled away from him, stepping back. "Don't worry about it. It was my fault." She looked at him, recognition dawning.

He nodded, recognizing her as well. "Miss Dawson. We meet again."

"Please, call me Rose."

"All right. If you will call me John." John Calvert put a steadying hand on her arm.

"John."

"What are you doing in this neighborhood?" he asked, looking at her curiously.

Rose sighed, a downhearted look appearing on her face. "I'm looking for work. But what I always hear is that I'm too well-educated, and don't have enough skills." She shook her head, confused. "That doesn't make sense."

"They're probably afraid they'll have to pay you decent wages if you're educated. What kind of work are you looking for?"

"Any kind of work, so long as it doesn't take me back to my old life. I've tried factories, department stores, offices—so far, no luck." _Except for the sweatshop job_, she thought, but didn't mention it.

His eyes brightened suddenly. "Have you ever considered caring for children?"

"I've thought about it, but being a nanny or a governess is likely to bring me into contact with...people I knew before." _And that_, she thought, _is a worse proposition than working in a sweatshop._

"If you worked for a rich family, yes, but...I need someone to care for Mary and Nadia while I work. I could pay you three dollars a week, plus room and board. I know it isn't much, but..."

Rose looked at him suspiciously. What else did he want from this 'arrangement'? To be sure, he had behaved like a gentleman the night they had shared a hotel room, but she really didn't know him well, and there was no telling what else he might have in mind.

"And you would only be expecting me to care for the children, not anything else?"

"Well, if you could help with the cooking and cleaning, that wouldn't hurt."

"And you wouldn't be expecting any other 'benefits' from this arrangement, would you?"

John sighed, looking at her. "You are suspicious. No, no other 'benefits'. You'd share a room with the children, and it would be strictly business."

Rose looked down, thinking. Of course she was suspicious, especially after her experience with the foreman in the sweatshop, but he seemed sincere in his words that the arrangement would be strictly business. And she highly doubted he would come into the room where the children were sleeping and attack her. From what little she knew of him, he seemed to be decent. Of course, Cal had seemed decent at first, too, but John wasn't Cal.

She thought about the two little girls she would be in charge of. Mary and Nadia were sweet, and they liked her, even though Nadia had never said a word to her. But then, Nadia didn't speak English, so it could simply have been that she didn't know what to say. And she did need the money. Three dollars a week wasn't much—the sweatshop had paid better—but this job would include room and board, and she would much rather care for the toddlers than sew dresses.

"All right," she told him at last. "I'll take it. Just let me stop by the boarding house and get my belongings."

He nodded. "Where are you living?"

"Just a few blocks from here." She told him the location of the boarding house.

"That's about three blocks from my apartment. I'll help you carry your things."

The walk to the boarding house went quickly. Rose hurried upstairs to her room, packing her few belongings into the shopping bags she had gotten from the stores she had bought most of them at. Tucking the Heart of the Ocean into the bodice of her dress, she hurried downstairs to return her key.

"Moving already?" her landlady asked her. People came and went, but not usually so quickly.

"I've found work in another neighborhood," Rose explained, handing over the key to her room.

The landlady took the key. "I can't refund you the rest of this month's rent, you know."

Rose sighed. "I need to take this job now, before someone else gets it. I guess you have a little extra profit this month on that room."

"If I can find another boarder."

"You have a few weeks before it stands empty and unpaid for. I have to be going." Rose picked up her bags and headed out the front door to where John was waiting.

The landlady followed her, watching as John took one of her bags and started down the street. "Huh. New job, I'm sure," she grumbled to herself, watching Rose walk away with the strange young man, who didn't look to have enough money to hire anyone.

About fifteen minutes later, John and Rose arrived at his apartment building. It was an immigrant tenement, though larger and not so run down as many. John told her the number of his apartment, on the third floor, and she hurried to put her things away before he brought the girls back from the teenager he had left them with that day.

As the door opened, she stepped out of the room she would share with the children. There were only two small beds, so she would have to sleep on the floor at first, but at least she had a home and a job.

Mary squealed in joy as Rose stepped from the room, running toward her with a now much-larger Allegro at her heels. The dog yipped in greeting and wagged his tail so hard his whole body switched.

"Aunt Wosie!" Mary ran up to Rose and tugged on her skirt. "You stay dinner?"

"Actually, Mary, I'm going to stay a lot longer than that—your Daddy has hired me to take care of you and Nadia while he goes to work during the day. I live here now." Rose smiled at the exuberant child.

Mary's eyes widened. "You do? You our Mommy, now?"

"No, Mary, I'm not going to be your Mommy, but you can keep calling me Aunt Rosie. I'm going to stay with you now."

Mary jumped up and down, tripping and almost falling before Rose caught her and swung her up into the air, giggling. Nadia just watched them, her thumb in her mouth.

Rose set Mary down and knelt down to look at Nadia. "Do you remember me, Nadia?"

Nadia stared at her uncomprehendingly. John spoke up.

"She doesn't speak English yet. In fact, she hasn't spoken at all since we last met."

Rose looked at Nadia in concern, wondering if the child might be deaf. "Did she ever speak before that?"

"On the ship. From what Miriam told me, Nadia saw her mother crushed under a falling smokestack, and that may be why she doesn't speak."

Rose looked at the toddler sympathetically. Nadia stared back, her eyes wide and frightened.

"Poor thing." She pointed to herself. "Aunt Rosie." Pointing to the little girl, she added, "Nadia." Smiling, she waited for a response.

Nadia took her thumb out of her mouth, but didn't make a sound. Still staring at Rose, she crept over to John and wrapped her arms around his legs.

Rose sighed. "All right, Nadia. You'll get used to me eventually. Shall I make dinner?"

"I help," Mary volunteered, toddling toward the cooking area. Nadia finally let go of John's legs and crept after Mary.

"I'll show you where I keep things." John gestured in the direction the toddlers had headed.

While Rose cooked dinner, with John's help, she allowed Mary to set the table. The little girl kept up a running dialogue about what she had done that day, frequently mixing up the day's activities with the previous day's, and even the previous week's. At age two, Mary didn't quite comprehend the concept of time. Nadia followed them around silently, still fearful of Rose and afraid to let either John or Mary out of her sight.

Rose was grateful for the weeks on her own that had taught her a few important skills. Her cooking skills were still meager, but with John's help she managed to put together a reasonably good meal. Mary darted back and forth between the small table and the stove as Rose worked, complaining that she was hungry. John finally sat the two children at the table on top of stacks of discarded newspapers, giving each a cracker to tide them over until dinner.

As they sat down to eat, Rose gave John a reassuring smile, telling him that he wouldn't have to worry about the children anymore, that she could take care of them. Inside, though, she wasn't sure she was up to the task. Mary she could handle, she knew, but it was the frightened, silent Nadia whose care she wasn't sure she could handle.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

In spite of her initial misgivings, Rose proved a competent caretaker for the little girls. She had little previous experience with children, having rarely been exposed to them except for when she was a child herself, but she soon learned. She had occasionally seen the small children of other women at social functions, but at such times the children had been on their best behavior, dressed in their finest clothing, and already trained in how to act at such occasions.

The toddlers that she had been hired to care for were a different matter. Having never had staid upper class mores drilled into their heads, they behaved in a more natural fashion, one that Rose often found perplexing and sometimes annoying.

Although both John and Rose tried to keep the children well-behaved, they were only two years old, and usually wanted to go their own way. Mary in particular could be difficult. She had often found herself in charge when John had been unable to find someone to watch them while he was working, and she was loath to give up her control over her foster sister and what they did. She frequently defied Rose's attempts to control her, sometimes driving Rose to yell loudly and spank her, after which she would sit in a corner of the apartment and sulk. Rose surprised herself with the amount of tolerance she had for Mary's behavior, and soon learned that yelling and spanking were ineffective in most cases. It was far more effective to put Mary in a corner alone, with no one to play with and no toys, and make her stay there for five minutes, until she had calmed down.

Nadia was often easier to care for than Mary. She was still silent and frightened, clinging to those familiar to her, but when she did decide to misbehave, she was sometimes harder to handle than Mary. Mary was loud and boisterous, frequently announcing what she was going to do before she did it, but Nadia rarely gave any indication of what she had in mind. She simply did what she pleased, and Rose soon learned to keep a close eye on her, especially outside of the apartment, where she once spent a frightened half-hour searching for the little girl after she wandered off on a trip to the local park. Nadia was found safe and sound, playing quietly in a mud puddle, but after that Rose kept the children within her sight at all times outside the apartment.

When the girls played together, Mary usually dominated the game, bossing Nadia around with shameless aplomb. Nadia sometimes followed Mary's lead when she misbehaved, much to Rose's dismay. Mary had a strong independent streak and a creative mind, which would stand her in good stead in later years but often got her into trouble as a toddler. She often tried to refuse such things as holding hands when crossing the street, taking baths, and eating with utensils instead of her fingers. Nadia sometimes imitated her beloved playmate, driving Rose to distraction. The two young children were active and energetic, in spite of Nadia's silence and both girls' frequent nightmares about the sinking of the Titanic.

At first, Mary defied Rose at every turn when her father was away, testing the limits to see how far she could go. Rose didn't know what to do with her initially, except punish her for inappropriate behavior, but punishment only went so far in controlling a child. Her superior size and strength were useful when it came to making the toddler do things that she didn't want to do, such as holding hands out on the street, But it wasn't long before she realized that Mary's attitude toward her was a curious mixture of defiance and adoration.

Mary adored Rose, even as she defied her commands and tried to go her own way. Her two-year-old need for independence warred with her adoration of the tall, red-headed woman who cared for her and her foster sister, persisting in taking care of them and forgiving them for their misbehavior no matter how far they pushed her. It wasn't long before Rose found that while spanking the little girl for misbehavior did little more than increase her defiance, ignoring things deliberately calculated to get her attention did work, as did openly disapproving of her misbehavior. In spite of herself, Mary longed for Rose's approval, and when she found that behaving well brought her what she craved, she was less inclined to misbehave.

Rose in turn learned to put up with the normal exploratory behavior of small children, not objecting when they stopped on the street to inspect everything of interest or when Mary asked endless questions. She allowed them play freely, as long as they were safe, remembering how often she had longed to do so when she was a child. She insisted that they be polite and do as she told them to insure their safety, but she also allowed them to be children, letting them play whatever games their young minds could come up with and only insisting that they clean up at the end of the day. A little dirt wouldn't hurt them, contrary to what her mother had believed when Rose was a child. Ruth would have been appalled had Rose been allowed to play in the mud, make toys out of abandoned newspapers and tin cans, play with small, grubby children, or most of the other things that Rose permitted her charges to do.

She saw no harm in letting them explore, so long as she kept an eye on them. Sometimes, rather than scolding them, she allowed them to learn from their mistakes—such as when Mary threw her plate of food on the floor at lunch during a temper tantrum, and Allegro promptly devoured every crumb. There wasn't any food left in the apartment, and Rose wasn't planning on going to the market until after the girls' naps, so Mary wound up going hungry until later in the afternoon, in spite of her attempts to talk Rose into giving her Nadia's lunch. She never threw her food to the dog again.

John approved of how she cared for them, surprised that she had adapted so quickly to the life she now led. Mary adored her, and Nadia soon grew used to her, clinging to her when she was frightened, much as she also clung to John, Mary, and Allegro. Rose cared for the toddlers, keeping them safe, clothed, and fed, and trying to give them the mother's love that they no longer had. Remembering some of the happier moments in her own childhood, she would set them in her lap and tell them stories, just as her own mother had done when she was small, and allowing them to help her around the apartment and at the market, as she had tried to do when left in the care of servants other than her nanny or governess when she was a little girl.

All in all, the arrangement worked well, and Rose found herself far more at home in her new environment than she had ever been in the far more restrictive upper class world.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

June 17, 1912

Rose puttered around the tiny room she shared with Mary and Nadia, straightening things and trying to avoid smelling the food in the main room. Her stomach lurched, making her breathe through her mouth to escape the scents from the breakfast table.

She opened the tiny window, preferring the smells of the city to the smell of food. She had awakened that morning feeling sick to her stomach, as she had every morning for the past three weeks. Vaguely, she wondered what was wrong as she made the beds and picked up the few things that had been tossed on the floor.

A sudden, overwhelming attack of nausea interrupted her work. Clapping her hand over her mouth, she darted out of the bedroom and ran through the main room and out the front door, ignoring the stares of the others. Racing down the narrow hall of the tenement building, she pushed her way past another person heading for the bathroom and rushed inside herself, slamming the door behind her.

When she was through getting sick, Rose leaned over the small, grimy sink and rinsed her mouth, wondering what was wrong with her. It seemed as though she'd caught some illness, but no one else was sick, and when she'd been ill in the past it had never lasted this long. She already knew from experience that she would feel better later, and be voraciously hungry, making up for what she couldn't eat in the morning, but she would also be more tired than usual. She usually lay down on her bed after lunch and napped alongside the toddlers, grateful for the chance to rest. Sometimes she also fell asleep early in the evening, again after she had put the girls to bed.

As she left the bathroom and headed back toward the apartment, it occurred to her that her nausea and tiredness could be as a result of not being used to the food she ate or the work she did, but she had only been experiencing this problem the last few weeks, while she had lived this new life since April.

When Rose returned to the apartment, John was waiting for her at the table. He had cleared the dishes and set them on the counter to be washed later, and Mary and Nadia were in a corner of the room, playing with Allegro. The dog wagged his tail appreciatively as Mary sneaked a piece of bread from her pocket and fed it to him.

John beckoned to Rose, gesturing for her to sit down at the table. She approached him reluctantly, repelled by the scent of food still lingering in the air. Sitting down, she covered her nose with her hand.

"Still feeling sick, are you?" John asked, looking seriously at her.

"A little."

"What's wrong?"

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I'm still adjusting to this way of life."

John looked at her skeptically. "You've been living here for over a month, but you've only been sick for about three weeks."

"So?"

"So, I think you should go down to the free clinic about ten blocks from here and see a doctor."

Rose shook her head. "I'll be fine."

John sighed, looking at her seriously. "If you have some contagious disease, I don't want any of the rest of us catching it. Either you go to the doctor, or you find a new job. It's as simple as that."

"I'll feel better later..."

"And then you'll be sick again tomorrow morning." He looked at her levelly.

Rose stared back at him, considering his ultimatum. She didn't want to leave the job she had. She had a roof over head and food when she was hungry, and beyond that, she liked the little girls in her care, and had no wish to abandon them. John was right. If she was sick, she needed to find out what was wrong, so that she didn't pass it along to her charges or her employer.

"All right," she agreed, nodding slowly. What could it hurt? If she really was sick, a doctor might be able to find a cure. If nothing was wrong, she would eventually adapt and feel better, and there would be no cause for worry by either John or herself. She really didn't have a choice, anyway.

*****

After the dishes were washed and the apartment straightened, Rose walked the ten blocks to the clinic, Mary and Nadia riding on her hips and Allegro trotting along ahead of them, tugging at his leash, which Rose had wrapped securely around her wrist. Once there, she got her name on the list and sat down to wait.

She waited for several hours. The clinic was packed with people, some much sicker than she, many with small children accompanying them, yelling, crying, and adding to the general chaos. Several people were so sick that everyone else moved as far away from them as possible, not wanting to catch their diseases. A skinny, shrunken woman with three children under the age of five sat across the room from Rose, coughing into a handkerchief. When she set the handkerchief down and picked up a child, Rose saw that the handkerchief was soaked with blood.

She pulled her young charges closer, wanting to protect them from the consumptive woman. Mary whined about being bored, while Nadia curled up in Rose's lap and sucked her thumb, staring at the crowded room with wide, frightened eyes. Rose did her best to keep them entertained, telling them stories and letting them scribble with a stubby pencil on a piece of paper from her pocket. When Mary tried to run across the room to play with the children of the consumptive woman, Rose pulled her back and refused to let her go, precipitating a screaming fit from the bored, frustrated toddler.

It was noon before a harried-looking nurse called her into a room. Mary was whining hungrily, and even Nadia tugged on Rose's skirt and looked at her pleadingly, pointing to her mouth to indicate that she wanted to eat.

Rose had no food for them. Pointing to a corner of the room, she directed them to sit there and play until she was done. Mary continued whining, complaining that she was hungry and that Rose was mean. Nadia found a small hole in the wall and crouched down to examine it.

A doctor came in a moment later. He started to question Rose about her problem, but Mary's whining interrupted him.

"Mary, be quiet," Rose commanded, more harshly than she intended. She'd had enough of Mary's whining.

Mary immediately gave a wail of misery, plopping down next to Nadia. Nadia stopped poking her fingers into the hole in the wall and began to wail herself.

Rose sighed, moving to get off the table and go to them, but the doctor crouched down beside them and dug into his pocket, fishing out two lollipops.

"Come on, you don't want to cry," he told the girls, handing each a candy. Distracted by the unexpected treat, the toddlers stopped crying and put the candy in their mouths, sitting quietly while he went back to Rose.

"Thank you," she told him, grateful for the peace and quiet, however temporary.

"Not a problem," he told her. "Pediatrics is my specialty. Now, what seems to be the problem?"

"I've been sick to my stomach for the last three weeks. Not all the time, though, just in the mornings. I always feel better later, and hungry. I've been tired, too. I usually take a nap when they do." She indicated the children sitting in the corner. "Sometimes, I'll fall asleep early in the evening, too, usually right after I put them to bed."

The doctor had been taking notes, nodding as he did so. Looking closely at her, he asked, "When was your last monthly?"

Rose blushed at the question, wondering what it could possibly have to do with anything—until she realized that the last time had been early in April. Her eyes widened in understanding.

"Early April," she told him. "Could I be pregnant?" _It isn't possible_, she told herself. _After all, it only happened once._

"You might be. I'll need to examine you to be sure."

Stepping behind a screen in a corner of the room, Rose prepared for the examination, blushing at the thought of being examined so intimately. Surely she wasn't really pregnant. She should just call off the whole thing and leave. John would never know the difference. She would eventually feel better, and everything would go on as it had before.

Shaking her head, Rose stepped out from behind the screen and climbed back up on the examining table, putting her feet in the stirrups and trying to avoid looking at the doctor. Mary toddled over, looking at her curiously.

"What you doing, Aunt Wosie?"

"Just letting the doctor examine me, Mary. Go play with Nadia until I'm done."

"Aunt Wosie..."

Nadia toddled over and tugged on Mary's hand, leading her back to the corner and showing her the hole in the wall. Rose sighed as the children turned their attention to the mysteries of the dark, dusty space in the wall.

After the examination, she sat up, pulling the flimsy hospital gown more closely around her. "Well?" she asked, her heart pounding nervously as she waited for the answer.

"You're pregnant," the doctor told her. "My guess is about two months along."

Rose shook her head. "I can't be," she protested. "It only happened once..." She clapped her hand over her mouth as she realized what she was saying.

"Once is all it takes, _Miss_ Dawson."

Rose heard the emphasis on the word Miss and stiffened. "It's _Mrs._ Dawson, actually," she told him. "I'm a widow. My husband and I were married on April 14, 1912—on the Titanic. When the ship sank, my husband went down with it." She looked at him fiercely, determined that no one would ever call her child a bastard.

The doctor gave her a skeptical look, but didn't argue. He didn't believe that she had been married, but Rose wasn't the first unmarried mother to invent a husband.

"All right, Mrs. Dawson. Do you have any further questions?"

Rose shook her head, wanting to leave. "No." Embarrassing as it might be, she thought that she could ask John questions. After all, he had a daughter, and had obviously lived with Mary's mother through her pregnancy. She certainly wasn't going to ask questions of this judgmental man.

After changing back into her dress, Rose left, agreeing hurriedly to the man's admonition to see a doctor regularly. She didn't know if she would or not. She had little money, and she didn't want to come back to the clinic. She supposed that she would if she had to, but she preferred to avoid it. There was a woman in the next apartment building who was a midwife. Perhaps she could go to her to be sure that everything was right with the baby.

Lifting the toddlers onto her hips and untying Allegro from the stair railing where she had left him, Rose started back toward the apartment. When Mary again complained that she was hungry, Rose stopped at the cart of a street vendor and bought lunch for all three of them, sitting to eat on a nearby bench and tossing their scraps to Allegro.

As she ate, Rose moved her hand slowly over her still-flat midsection, thinking about the baby growing inside her. Would it be a boy or a girl? Who would it look like—herself or Jack, or maybe a combination of their features? As difficult as the prospect of being unwed and pregnant was, she was glad she was having a baby. Jack was dead, but a part of him would live on through their child.

Looking up at the sky, she wondered if Jack somehow knew about the baby. _We're having a baby, Jack. Do you know that? Are you watching over me, even now, with the knowledge that a part of you still lives on? Thank you, so much, for this precious gift. No matter how hard it is, I am going to have this baby and give it all the love and care a child could want._

There was no sign that her thoughts had been heard, that anyone was aware of what she was thinking, but nevertheless Rose felt a sensation of warmth go through her, and she somehow knew that Jack knew and approved.

*****

Rose napped alongside the toddlers that afternoon, then spent most of the rest of the day playing games with them, much to their delight. Even the somber Nadia giggled when they played hide and seek and Rose crawled under the table, still visible to the tiny girls.

Rose's enthusiasm lasted through dinner, but after the children were in bed for the night, she began to feel uneasy again. John had asked her at dinner if she had found out what was wrong, and she had promised to tell him later. Now, he was at the table again, waiting for her.

She sat down across the table from him, nervously folding and unfolding a pile of the children's clothes, which she had washed the day before and hung out to dry on a clothesline stretched between her apartment and the apartment across the street. He looked at her intently, but Rose avoided his eyes.

"Did you find out what was wrong?" John asked her after a moment.

"Yes." Rose ducked her head, suddenly finding a missing button on Nadia's dress extraordinarily interesting.

"What is it?"

She finally looked at him, her face set, as though daring him to put her out on the street after he heard her news.

"I'm pregnant," she told him bluntly. "The baby is due in January."

John nodded, dismayed but not surprised. Having outlived two wives, he recognized the visible symptoms of pregnancy, but he had half-hoped that he was wrong about Rose. She wasn't married, and he knew what the neighbors would think, how they would gossip. He wasn't the father of her baby; he had never laid a hand on her, but they wouldn't believe that.

"Who is the father?" he asked her, equally bluntly.

She stared back at him. "That's none of your business."

"I think it is."

"It isn't."

"You do know who he is, don't you?"

Rose's face reddened. She gave him an angry look. "Yes," she told him tersely.

"Your ex-fiancé?"

"No!" Rose told him sharply, then clapped a hand over her mouth, realizing that she had said more than she intended. John had also been on the Titanic, in third class, and he might well know about Jack, might have seen them dancing together that night in steerage. If he remembered that, he might put the pieces of the puzzle together, and realize who her baby's father was. Rose winced at the idea. She wasn't ready to talk about Jack; she didn't know if she would ever be ready.

"So it was the other one, then? The one you were dancing with that night?"

Rose glared at him, irritated that he had figured it out so easily. "I'm his widow," she lied. "We were married the last night on Titanic, and then he died in the sinking."

John looked at her levelly. "You weren't married to him. You just took his name. I saw your fiancé walking around looking for you on the Carpathia."

"I'm his widow," Rose told him firmly, her voice even and steady. "That's all you need to know. That's what the neighbors will learn if they ask questions."

"They'll ask questions. They already wonder why I have an unmarried woman living in my apartment."

"If I'm still here."

"Are you planning on leaving?"

"That's up to you." Rose looked at him. "This is your apartment, and those are your children. I will understand, of course, if you wish for me to leave."

John looked at the table, thinking. What would he do with another child in the apartment? Would Rose be able to support her baby on the three dollars a week he paid her? He might be able to afford to give her few cents more, but that was all. Of course, the baby wouldn't be born until January, and she probably wouldn't have to buy food for the child for several months after that.

"Do you want me to leave?" Rose's voice interrupted his thoughts. "If you do, I need to know now, so that I'll have time to try to find a job before my condition becomes visible."

John didn't answer her. Instead, he asked, "Where is...Mr. Dawson?"

Rose stared at him. "He's dead. I told you that. He died in the sinking." A look of grief came over her face.

He sighed. "You can stay," he told her, "if you want to."

"Thank you for your kindness." Her voice was sarcastic.

"Look, Rose, I can't say that I approve of the situation you're in, but the girls love you, and I'm not going to tear their lives apart again by sending you away."

It was on the tip of Rose's tongue to tell him to find someone else to care for his children, but she knew that he was right. Mary and Nadia had grown attached to her, and she wouldn't simply leave them if she didn't have to.

"I'll stay," she told him quietly. "You can tell the nosy neighbors that I'm your cousin or some such thing if they ask. In my heart, I am a widow, and I will tell people as much—if they ask."

"How are you going to convince people that you're a widow? You don't have a ring."

"A woman has to do something to stay alive when her husband is gone and she is alone. Even if it means selling her wedding ring to survive. I'm obviously not a wealthy woman."

She stared at him, daring him to challenge her. Whenever anyone had asked her name, she had identified herself as Rose Dawson, allowing people to come to their own conclusions as to whether she was married or not. Most people called her Miss Dawson, but a few who had seen her only with Mary and Nadia and assumed that she was their mother called her Mrs. Dawson. Whenever someone called her Miss Dawson after this, she would correct them, telling them that her name was Mrs. Dawson. Any questions about the sudden change she would explain by telling people that she had been so upset over her husband's death that she hadn't wanted to be called _Mrs._ Dawson, because it reminded her to painfully of him. People would understand such an emotion; at least, most of them would.

She would simply have to be strong in the face of the others. Her baby was depending upon her.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

The months following Rose's announcement of her pregnancy passed quickly. She continued to care for Mary and Nadia, acting as the mothers they no longer remembered. She combined her upper class education with the more dynamic life of the working class immigrants to teach them things that few children had the opportunity to learn.

Every day, after the dishes were washed and the apartment straightened up, Rose would take the toddlers on some sort of outing. Sometimes they would go to the local park, or would go to the market or the second-hand store, but other times she took them farther afield, showing them the city outside of their own neighborhood. While she never ventured into upper class areas, still fearful of meeting someone she knew, she sometimes took them into the middle class areas of New York City, or to the places heavily populated by tourists. Once, she took them to Pier 54, telling them about the night the Carpathia docked there. Mary seemed to remember something of the time, but Nadia simply looked confused until she saw the ocean with its waves and debris. Then she burst into tears and wailed until Rose took her away from the frightening sight.

As John had predicted, the neighbors did indeed ask questions about Rose's pregnancy. She kept it a secret for as long as she could, but within a few months she began to show enough that it could no longer be passed off as simple weight gain. Her morning sickness had ended with her third month of pregnancy, much to Rose's relief, but the curious looks and questions of the neighbors made her uncomfortable.

She solved the problem to a certain extent by telling the biggest gossip in the building about how kind her cousin John was to take her in after her husband had died so tragically, and how she and John had met up outside a factory in New York where Rose was trying to find work. Putting on a sad face, Rose told of how terrible it had been to have to sell her wedding ring to survive, especially since it was all she had left to remember her husband by.

The busybody promptly spread the tragic tale, and many people came to Rose with their sympathy, telling her how lucky she was to have a child to remember her husband by. John was regarded as something of a hero, taking in his widowed cousin as well as a child who was no relation to him. A few people didn't believe the story, pointing out that there was no resemblance between Rose and John, and that John was obviously British while Rose was American, but people who believed the story, or wanted to believe it, came up with their own explanations. Cousins often looked dissimilar, and it was entirely possible that Rose's parents had immigrated to the United States while John's had remained in England.

Rose stood by her story, telling it to John so that he would know what she had said and not ruin her reputation, or her baby's, by disagreeing with her. She ignored the condemning looks and whispers of those who didn't believe her story, insisting that it was exactly as she had said, and allowing other people to come to their own conclusions about the missing elements of the story, so long as they did not make her, the baby, or her household look bad.

Whenever possible, Rose bought things she would need in preparation for the coming child. After saving her meager wages for several weeks, she bought a sturdy secondhand cradle and bedding to go with it. Later, she bought diapers and clothes for the infant, as well as a couple of toys and a few other necessary items. Mary and Nadia were fascinated by her swelling midsection, laughing with delight when Rose allowed them to feel the baby kicking.

In November, Nadia began to talk again, this time in English, and Rose was glad that she had stayed to help care for the girls. The first words Nadia spoke were An Wo, asking Rose for lunch. Hearing the frightened, silent little girl begin to talk was a delight, even when Nadia quickly proved that she knew the two-year-old's favorite word—no.

In spite of the precariousness of life at times, Rose was content. She had found a family of sorts; John had become a friend and the toddlers adored her. She was expecting her own baby in January, a child conceived in a precious, stolen moment with the man she loved, and everything seemed right with the world.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

January 14, 1913

"Aunt Wosie?" A little hand tugged at Rose's blanket. "Aunt Wosie?"

Rose groaned inwardly. It seemed like she had just fallen asleep. Her back had been aching off and on from the time she had gone to bed, making it almost impossible to sleep. Now that she had finally dozed off, Mary needed something.

Rose closed her eyes again, trying to ignore the little girl. Maybe she'd go back to bed.

"Aunt Wosie!" The voice was more insistent now, the little hands almost yanking the blanket off of her.

Reluctantly, Rose sat up. "What's the matter, Mary?" she whispered, looking at the little girl, almost invisible in the darkness. It couldn't be later than three o'clock in the morning.

"Aunt Wosie...I had a axdent."

"A axdent? Oh, an accident." Rose sighed, dragging herself out of bed. The toddlers were mostly potty-trained, but accidents still happened. Mary was barely three years old; Rose couldn't yell at her.

_Get used to it,_ she told herself. _You'll be dealing with several more years of this. The baby won't be potty-trained for a long time._

She pulled the blanket off of Mary's bed, finding the wet spot. Sighing, she removed the sheet, glad that she had put a thick pile of rags under each toddler's sheet to protect the mattress against such occurrences. Stripping off the top two rags, old towels that she had retrieved from a trash pile and washed, she put another sheet on the bed, wadding up the dirty one and tossing it into a corner. She would wash it later.

After changing Mary's nightgown, Rose put her back to bed, tucking the blanket around her. Mary snuggled sleepily back into bed, then asked Rose for something else.

"Aunt Wosie?"

"Yes, Mary?" Rose was getting impatient, wanting to go back to sleep, but she tried to keep her impatience from her voice.

"Can I have a dink a' wata?"

Rose grimaced at the thought. "No, Mary. Not now. Once is enough for one night."

"But I'm thirsty."

"You can have a drink in the morning, Mary. Not right now. I don't want to get up again."

"Aunt Wosie..."

"No. Go to sleep."

Mary lay down, sulking but knowing better than to argue with Rose. It would only get her yelled at. "Mean Aunt Wosie..."

"I know, Mary. I'm awful. Go to sleep. You can have something to drink in the morning." She doubted Mary was that thirsty, anyway. The little girl often tried delaying tactics to avoid having to go back to bed.

As she crawled back into bed, Rose heard Mary mumbling under her breath about how mean she was. A few moments later, there was silence. Mary had fallen asleep again.

Laying on her side, trying to find a comfortable position, Rose tried to do the same.

*****

Rose awoke early in the morning. She hadn't slept well after Mary had awakened her. The backache continued to come and go, more frequently as the hours passed. At six o'clock, she finally got up and got ready for the day.

A short time later, she had breakfast started. John came out of his room, rubbing his eyes. He sat down at the table and gulped down some coffee, barely noticing what was going on around him until he had finished the first cup.

Mary and Nadia came from their room when the smell of food woke them. Mary climbed into her chair and gobbled up her food, barely noticing the drink Rose put in front of her, confirming Rose's suspicion that Mary had really wanted to stay up longer the night before.

Rose didn't eat much, her appetite gone for some reason. Of course, she had had progressively less appetite lately, as the baby had grown and pushed her internal organs around, reducing the amount of space in her stomach. This morning, however, her appetite was particularly poor. She shrugged it off, not really worried, and turned to washing the dirty sheet and towels she had taken from Mary's bed and hanging them on the line strung between her apartment window and the window across the way.

She looked up as John put the last bite of his breakfast in his mouth and pushed himself back from the table, heading for the door to go to work. Mary and Nadia waved good-bye to him, their little voices chorusing as they shouted to him.

Rose set about cleaning off the table as soon as John's footsteps had faded away. She moved a bit awkwardly, her swollen middle making it hard to carry the stacks of dishes. At her direction, Mary and Nadia cleared their own dishes from the table and brought them over to the counter, where Rose took them and began to wash them.

Her time was near, Rose knew. It had been exactly nine months to the night she had pulled Jack into the back seat of the Renault with her, and the baby could be born any time. The woman in the next building who had been a midwife in the old country had explained to Rose what to expect. Rose wasn't frightened, not exactly, but the prospect of childbirth did make her nervous.

Rose shrugged off her thoughts as she finished washing the dishes and put them away. The baby would come when it was ready; she had no control over it. She wished that Jack could see the child, but pushed that thought away, too. He was gone; there was no bringing him back, and she would love and care for their child alone.

When the dishes were done, she led Mary and Nadia to their room, where she bundled them up in coats, scarves, and gloves against the chill January weather. Over the months that she had been caring for them, their morning walk had become a ritual, one that they engaged in rain or shine. She would take the children shopping with her when need be, or visit with other women who had young children, or walk with them to the park to play. Every day, she pointed out all the sights and sounds of the city around them, helping the girls grow accustomed to their new home.

This morning, the weather was cold but clear, so Rose took them to the neighborhood park to play. The girls skipped along at her side, chattering to each other and stopping every few feet to examine something interesting. Mary, at three, considered herself to be an expert on everything, bossing Nadia around and trying to command Allegro, neither of whom were particularly inclined to listen to her. Rose and John had estimated Nadia to be a bit younger than Mary, and John had chosen April fifteenth—the day he taken Nadia into his care—as her birthday.

When they reached the park, Rose let Allegro off of his leash, and he followed the girls, barking, to a flat stretch of still-white snow. He ran through it, leaving footprints, as the two small girls slipped and slid in the cold powder. Initially, both Mary and Nadia had feared the cold, the snow, and the ice of the New York winter, remembering subconsciously the ordeal when the Titanic had sank. Both had ended up in the water, Nadia for just a short time before a woman in the lifeboat she had fallen from had picked her up, Mary for a longer time, after Miriam had thrown her in the direction of the boat in hopes that she would find a place in it and survive.

Neither girl consciously remembered much of what had happened, but Rose did. The memories of the little girls were not yet developed enough for them to consciously remember the disaster in more than bits and pieces, but Rose remembered it as though it had been the night before—the bitterly cold water, the screams of the people slowly freezing to death, her own sorrow as she had broken the ice that had frozen her hand to Jack's and watched him sink into the water.

In spite of her memories of that terrible night, Rose knew that the only way to get over her fear of the cold, and to help the children overcome their fears, was to confront it. As winter had approached, and the weather had grown progressively colder, Rose had continued taking them out for walks in the morning chill, showing them ice-encrusted puddles, and later, drifts of snow. Neither girl had wanted to play in the snow at first, afraid of the cold. Rose had pushed down her own dread of the cold and shown them how much fun snow could be to play with, showing them how to build a snowman and how to throw snowballs. Neither child had much experience with the snow; it rarely snowed in London, and seldom lasted long when it did snow, so Mary didn't know what snow was, and Nadia had originally come from the Middle East, a land known for its deserts. Rose, however, had grown up in Philadelphia, and was familiar with snow, and what could be done with it.

The three of them set about building a snowman, while the dog ran around, sniffing and yapping at passers-by, and trying to see what the humans were doing. He finally curled up in a cleared space, insulted, after Mary shoved him away for trying to sit on the snowball she was making.

Rose laughed at the antics of the children and dog as she helped the girls lift the balls of snow on top of each other, constructing a short, lop-sided snowman, which had to be put back together after Nadia slipped and fell against it, knocking it over.

It was late in the morning, when they were searching for sticks and pebbles to make the face of the snowman, that Rose felt the first pains.

She ignored them at first. For several weeks, she had been having occasional pains, false labor, that never progressed. She had been alarmed initially, fearing that something was wrong, but as the weeks passed and she continued to carry her child, she had relaxed, realizing that there was no need to worry.

After a time, however, as Rose and the children were walking home, she realized that these pains were not going to stop. They were coming at closer intervals, tightening around her back and midsection, and she realized that her baby was indeed ready to make an appearance. Her pulse jumped with nervous excitement at the realization, and she hurried the children the rest of the way back to the apartment.

*****

When they got home, Rose puttered around, making lunch for the girls and straightening up the main room. She ate nothing herself, her appetite still gone.

"Aunt Wosie? Why you not eat?" Mary asked, watching her straighten up the room.

"I...I'm just not very hungry right now, Mary," she told the child. Her excitement and nervousness over the coming birth, combined with the contractions of her muscles as her body prepared to deliver the child, had robbed her of her appetite.

Mary seemed to accept this, though she still watched curiously as Rose occasionally stopped, holding her distended stomach, waiting for a pain to end.

When the girls had finished eating, Rose put them down for their naps, laying down on her own bed and trying to rest. She hadn't washed the lunch dishes, but that could wait. She stretched out, trying to find a comfortable position.

About an hour later, Nadia awoke, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. She saw Rose lying on her bed, her arms wrapped around her middle.

"Aunt Wose? Wha's wrong?"

Rose opened her eyes to see Nadia looking at her worriedly. Making an effort to smile, she sat up, relieved that pain had ended, and picked the little girl up off her bed, setting her beside her.

"I'm getting ready to have the baby, Nadia," she explained, not expecting the child to understand.

"I wanna see stork."

Rose looked over to see that Mary had awakened and was looking at them excitedly. John had finally told her that babies were brought by storks to quiet her questions about where babies came from. Ever since, Mary had been hoping to see the stork when Rose's baby was born.

Rose thought for a moment, trying to decide how to explain to Mary that she couldn't see the stork without explaining where babies really came from. Mary was a curious child, always asking why, and she wouldn't be satisfied with being told that there was no stork. She would want to know why, and then the questions would start again.

"Only the baby's mother can see the stork," Rose told her. "It's invisible to everyone else. You'll be able to see the baby when it comes, though."

"When it come?"

"Soon."

"I wanna see baby now."

Rose sighed. "You can't, Mary. You can't see it until it's born—"

"Wanna see it now!" Mary screeched and pounded on her mattress, kicking her feet angrily. "Now! Now! Now!"

"Mary, that's enough," Rose warned her. She had no patience with Mary's tantrums right now.

"Yeah, shut up, Ma-wy," Nadia told her, standing on Rose's bed and giving the other girl a superior look. Mary was in trouble, and not her.

"Nadia, that's not nice," Rose told her, making her sit back down.

Surprisingly, Mary quieted, looking angrily at Nadia. "Dumb Nada," she mumbled, sliding off the bed and heading for the main room.

Rose set Nadia on the floor and followed Mary out, the younger child trailing after her.

*****

For the rest of the afternoon, Rose supervised the children. Mary soon forgave Nadia for telling her to shut up, and the two played companionably with a set of wooden blocks that John had given them for Christmas. Rose washed the dishes and dusted the room between contractions, anxious for something to pass the time.

Finally, she sat down in one of chairs, watching the girls play, waiting as the contractions grew closer and closer together. Around six o'clock, she forced herself to get up and prepare a meal for John, Mary, and Nadia, though the pains were growing longer and harder to stand through.

At 6:30, John walked in the door, home from another day at the factory. The girls ran to greet him, Mary shouting out the news before Nadia could beat her to it.

"Daddy, Aunt Wosie waiting for stork!"

John looked inquiringly at Rose, wondering what was happening.

"The baby's coming," Rose told him, turning from the stove. Another contraction hit her at that moment, and she grimaced, holding her belly until the pain had passed. "Would you please go find Mrs. Anderson?"

"The midwife?"

Rose nodded. "She lives in the building to our left, in apartment 3R. She already agreed to help me when the baby is born."

"How long have you been in labor?" John asked her.

"Since about mid-morning."

"Why didn't you get her earlier?"

"I was watching the children," Rose pointed out. "Besides, there's time. It will be a while before the baby is born, I think."

Shaking his head, John left to find the midwife. Marian Anderson was originally from a small village in northern England, and had been a well-respected midwife there. When she and her husband had come to the United States, she had continued practicing among the neighborhood women, charging them much less than a doctor would have, but providing them with decent care, not always available to the poorer women of the area. She sometimes bragged about how few babies had been lost under her care, and in an area with a relatively high infant mortality rate, that was something that people respected, and she had no shortage of work.

Hoping that John would hurry back with Mrs. Anderson, Rose gave the children their dinner, working around the ever more frequent contractions.

*****

John returned about fifteen minutes later, Mrs. Anderson walking beside him, a bag of instruments in her hand. She ushered Rose into the small bedroom she shared with the children, while John finished feeding them and cleaned up.

Rose brought out the girls' nightgowns, since she doubted that John would want to put them to bed in a room with a laboring woman. Returning to the room, she shut the door and quickly changed into her own nightgown.

Laying down on the bed, Rose lay still as Mrs. Anderson examined her, using much more care than the doctor who had diagnosed her pregnancy. Pulling the nightgown back down, Mrs. Anderson helped her sit up.

"You've got a ways to go yet, but not too far. You should have the baby in a few hours at most."

"Hours?" Rose groaned at the thought. She had already been in labor for hours. Why did these things take so long?

"I know the waiting is hard," the midwife told her. "I've had five of my own. But it's well worth it, once you see the baby."

Rose leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes as another contraction gripped her. "I want to lay down," she mumbled, starting to slide down.

Mrs. Anderson stopped her. "It's better if you sit up. It helps push the baby downward. I know that doctors usually tell women that they need to lay flat on their backs, but it's really much easier on both mother and child if she sits up until it's time for the birth."

Rose moaned at the thought. She had hardly slept the night before, and she was tired. She didn't know where she'd get the energy to actually give birth. But Mrs. Anderson had delivered many babies, while she herself was only now giving birth to her first. "Whatever you say," she told her, deferring to the midwife's greater experience.

She settled back against the wall, hoping that the hours would pass quickly.

*****

Rose gasped, her body drenched in sweat. It was well past midnight, and she had been in labor for hours. The pains were so close together as to allow almost no break, but the baby was not yet born. Mrs. Anderson examined her repeatedly, assuring her that she was doing fine, and that the baby would be born before long.

Just after two o'clock in the morning, Rose sensed a change in her body, and, at the midwife's direction, commenced pushing. It was hard work, but she continued to bear down, breathing hard and crying out in pain, as she struggled to bring her child into the world.

At 2:20, Rose half sat up, giving one last push. The baby slid from her body, announcing its arrival with a wail as it took its first breath.

Mrs. Anderson cut the umbilical cord, cleaning the baby and checking it over. "You have a healthy son," she told Rose, giving her the baby. "He has a mass of hair on his head and a strong set of lungs."

Rose took the baby, noticing the time on the midwife's pocket watch. 2:20 AM. _How fitting_, she thought. Her baby had been born exactly nine months after the disaster that had taken his father.

Cradling the newborn close, she examined him, counting the tiny fingers and toes, smoothing the thicket of pale blonde hair on the infant's head. He opened his eyes for a moment before returning to crying, and Rose saw that his eyes were a deep shade of blue, just like his father's. _Thank you, Jack_, she thought silently. _We have a beautiful, healthy baby boy, who looks just like you. I promise, I will do my best for him._

"What are you going to name him?" Mrs. Anderson asked, interrupting her thoughts.

Rose considered that for only a moment. "Christopher Jack Dawson," she told her, looking at the tiny boy in her arms. Christopher, for his maternal grandfather, and Jack, for his father. Neither man would ever see his namesake, but she had known when she looked at the baby what his name should be.

*****

Once Mrs. Anderson had Rose cleaned up and settled into bed, she allowed the other members of the household to see her and the child. Mary and Nadia had finally fallen asleep in John's arms, but had awakened at the sound of the baby's cry, and were eager to see the new member of their "family." As soon as they were allowed, they dashed into the room to see their caretaker and her new baby.

John followed more slowly, seeing the girls standing beside Rose's bed, staring in fascination at the newborn. Rose was sitting up, several pillows propped up behind her, holding the infant in her arms. She was dressed in a warm, clean nightgown, looking exhausted but content. At her nod of consent, he lifted the children up onto her bed to see the infant more clearly.

They were both in awe of the tiny baby, reaching out to touch the little face and hands. Christopher turned his head when Nadia touched his cheek, his mouth working. One tiny fist curled around Mary's fingers as she touched the infant's hands.

"Wha's his name?" Mary asked, tugging on Rose's sleeve to get her attention. Rose was growing drowsy.

"His name is Christopher," Rose told her. "Christopher Dawson."

"Kiss," Mary replied, taking her fingers away from the baby.

"Cwis," Nadia added, giggling as the baby got one of her fingers into his mouth and sucked on it. "Funny."

"He likes you," Rose told the girls, sitting up a bit more and cradling the newborn against her chest.

"He does?" Mary shook the tiny fist. "I'm Mary, and this is Nada."

Rose laughed at the little girl's imitation of adult greetings. "He can't talk yet, Mary, but he will soon. Will you and Nadia help him learn?"

"Uh-huh." Nadia slid down from the bed as John came over to take a closer look at the baby. "Daddy, look!"

"Yes, Nadia. He's cute, isn't he?"

"Uh-huh."

"Now, it's time for you and Mary to go to bed."

"No!" Mary whined.

"The baby will still be here in the morning," Rose assured her. "He's going to sleep in here with us." She pointed to the second-hand cradle she had bought and set up for the baby.

"Okay." Mary yawned tiredly, allowing John to tuck her into bed. "'Night, Aunt Wosie. 'Night, Kiss."

"Yeah," Nadia added. "Night-night."

It was only minutes before the two little girls, worn out by the long, exciting day, were sound asleep. John took the baby from a very sleepy Rose, tucking him into his cradle and rocking him until he fell back asleep.

Rose watched John rock her newborn son, suddenly glad that she had found employment with this very tolerant, caring man. How many men would have hired her to such a position without demanding a part of her in return, or would have kept her on after learning that she was unwed and pregnant? She knew that John didn't believe her story about having married Jack, but he had allowed her to continue working for him, and had even agreed with her story to protect her reputation. He had kept her on, along with a child who wasn't his, even though they might be a strain on his finances, and had raised her pay a few cents to give her more for the baby.

Smiling to herself, Rose watched John tuck Christopher into his cradle as she fell asleep.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

May 1916

Rose moved around the small apartment, dusting and sweeping. From the corner, she could hear Nadia and Christopher laughing over some game.

Rose stretched and put the dust cloth into a pile of clothes to be washed. Much had happened over the four years that she had been living with the Calverts, caring for John's daughters. Mary was six years old and in school now, and Nadia would start school the following fall. Christopher was three years old, a mischievous, energetic child who reminded her more of his father every day.

They had moved from the tiny apartment in the slums two years earlier, when John had been promoted to foreman of his department at the factory, and now lived in a somewhat larger apartment a few blocks away from the factory. There was more space for all of them, enough room so that the two girls had a bedroom to themselves, while Rose shared a room with her son, and John slept alone. There was even a separate kitchen and living room, and Rose was housekeeper as well as caretaker for the children.

Sometimes, Rose looked around at her small, confined world, and wondered what had happened to her plans to head out for the horizon. It wasn't that she disliked the Calverts, or their home, but she had left the upper class behind with the idea of finding something different, something that she hadn't experienced before. So far, aside from learning domestic labor and becoming a mother, she hadn't done much, and her life was in many ways as restricted as it had been before she had left her old life behind.

Rose often looked longingly at audition notices in the city, still dreaming of becoming an actress, though she was now twenty-one years old and had done little outside the home in her life. John didn't consciously put restrictions on her, but she knew that he felt that her primary job was in caring for the children, and as long as she remained in his employ, this was what she had to focus her energies on. Still, Nadia was nearly ready to start school, and if she left, Christopher would come with her. They wouldn't really need her anymore, though she knew that the girls had grown attached to her. It would be hard to leave them behind, and she wasn't sure if she could make it on her own, especially with a small child, but she wanted to try. For the time being, though, she was still needed as nanny to the girls, and she would at least wait until fall to make any changes.

A knock sounded on the door as she put the broom away, and she hurried to answer it, shooing the two children and the barking dog back. It was a safer neighborhood than the one they had left behind, but one never knew who might knock on the door uninvited.

A man in the uniform of an upper class servant stood at the door. "Good morning, Ma'am. Would Mr. Calvert be about?"

Rose shook her head. "He's at work right now. May I tell him who dropped by?"

"There's no need, Ma'am. I'm from the home of his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Anders. She sent me to bring this letter, since it seems that you don't yet have a telephone."

"No, we don't," Rose told him, taking the sealed white envelope. John's name and address were written on it.

"Please see that he gets it as soon as possible. Mrs. Anders says that it's urgent."

"May I ask what it's about?"

"I really can't say, Ma'am. I was only instructed to bring the letter. I wasn't told what it said."

"All right." Rose set the letter on a high shelf near the door, out of the reach of Christopher's curious fingers. "I'll give it to him as soon as he gets home."

"Thank you, Ma'am."

Rose closed the door, her own curiosity almost overwhelming her. Why was Elizabeth Anders having someone deliver a letter to them?

They had seen her on many occasions over the past few years, though never at her own home. James Anders disliked his working class son-in-law, and wanted no part of him, his daughters, or his "cousin" and her son. It was just as well, Rose thought, that he didn't want to see them. She had no wish to return to the upper class, even as a visitor, and sometimes worried that Elizabeth would realize that she had once been Rose DeWitt Bukater, and that word would get back to her mother. Rose knew that she no longer had anything to fear from Cal, as he had married in 1914, but she had no intention of returning to her old life. Fortunately, Elizabeth had never made the connection, or if she had, she had never mentioned it.

On the occasions when they had seen Elizabeth, she had visited them at their apartment, or had met them somewhere nearby, sometimes taking the children places that John could not afford to take them, or had not the time for. Rose usually accompanied them, and Christopher was as inclined to call the older woman Grandma as the two girls were. John had told Rose that Elizabeth had accepted Mary and Nadia as her granddaughters after learning of Miriam's death. They were the only grandchildren she would have, and even though they were no relation to her, she had taken them under her wing because they were John's daughters, and, as such, Miriam's stepdaughters, though Miriam had died before Nadia had become a member of the family.

Christopher also called her Grandma, and had ever since he had learned to talk. No one had ever bothered to correct him. Elizabeth was Grandma, Rose was Mommy, and John was Uncle John. Mary and Nadia had no particular classification; they were cousins, Rose had told him, but he cared about little beyond the fact that they were playmates and sometimes tormentors. He had asked Rose on occasion why he didn't have a daddy like other children did, and Rose had always shaken her head, and told him that his daddy was in heaven, watching over him.

*****

When John got home late that afternoon, Rose gave him the letter, then lingered nearby, hoping that he would tell her what it said. She had eventually given up holding it to the light and trying to read the words through the paper, but she was still curious, and cast sidelong glances at John as he read it.

When he finally set it aside, she could no longer restrain her curiosity. "What's going on?" she asked, looking at the paper lying on the table.

John looked a little bewildered. "It seems that my father-in-law died of a stroke just last week, and in his will he left everything to his wife, who it seems is his only living relation. The odd thing is, she says that she needs my help with certain aspects of the will."

"Your help?"

He nodded. "I can't imagine why. I'm not a lawyer, nor someone familiar with what she now owns. The only thing I can think of is that she might want to give something to Mary and Nadia. At any rate, she wants us all to come to visit this coming Sunday, so she can discuss the will with us. I don't imagine that James Anders left anything to any of us, but Elizabeth has taken the girls as her granddaughters, and she might want to give something to them."

"That might be. Are you going to visit with her on Sunday?"

"I think so. The girls will want to see her, and we haven't visited the house since we arrived back in 1912. You'll bring Christopher, too, of course."

"Of course. He thinks she's his grandmother, too."

"Well, you'll probably like seeing the house. I don't know if the girls remember it, but it should seem like old times to you. It's an elaborate mansion in a wealthy part of the city."

Rose nodded, but she wasn't so sure she wanted to come. Who knew who she might meet in that neighborhood? She had studiously avoided places that she would have frequented as a member of the upper class, and she didn't know if she wanted to go back and face her memories.

*****

On Sunday, the Calverts and the Dawsons took the El as close as they could to Elizabeth Anders' upper class neighborhood. They walked the rest of the way, the children in awe of the stately houses and well-groomed lawns, so different from the apartment they lived in. Rose looked at the mansions and gardens, remembering a time when she, too, had lived in such a place. It had been beautiful and luxurious, but also restrictive.

Rose's thoughts were turned inward as they walked along the wide, well cared for streets. Holding Christopher by the hand, she looked at the buildings, at the people in the yards and walking along the sidewalks, remembering when she had been a part of this world. It had been a long time, so long that she scarcely remembered what it was like to live in a fancy house, with servants to wait upon her and every imaginable luxury hers for the asking. She had given that life up, and she wasn't sorry, but there were times when she remembered this life longingly, for it hadn't been all bad. It spite of the strictures imposed upon upper class women, she had known times of happiness growing up, before her father had died and her mother had begun to impress upon her the importance of making a good marriage to shore up the sagging family fortunes.

Rose pushed these thoughts away as they turned up the walk of a large, three-story brick mansion, not unlike the one she had grown up in. A wrought-iron fence surrounded the house, and the lawn and gardens were neatly groomed, daffodils blooming in profusion along the fence.

Elizabeth herself answered the door, not waiting for a servant to do it for her. She was dressed in black, the color of mourning, but her appearance was calm and collected, showing little grief over her husband's death. James and Elizabeth had not gotten along well in years, and had scarcely seen each other since the news of Miriam's death had reached them four years earlier, in spite of living in the same house. The mansion was more than large enough for them to lead separate lives, in spite of living under the same roof. It had been a servant who had first discovered James after his stroke, and it had been that same servant who had told Elizabeth that he had died, two days later. She had attended the funeral, and shown proper mourning, but she hadn't really been sorry that he was gone. The affection she had felt for him in the early years of their marriage had long since disappeared, replaced by enmity at times, and, more often, indifference. They had been married in name only for many years, even before Miriam had been born.

"Welcome," she told them, smiling at the group.

The three children ran up and hugged her, shouting "Grandma!"

Elizabeth hugged each child in turn, then sent them to the kitchen for a snack. Rose looked questioningly at her, and she nodded, gesturing for her to follow the children while she talked to John.

Rose followed the three children to the kitchen, led by a maid. She trailed after them slowly, remembering when she herself had lived in such a house. This one was much like the one she had left behind—dark, heavy furnishings, the drapes drawn to keep the sun from fading the furniture and carpets. Expensive paintings decorated the walls, some of members of the Anders family, others purchased from various galleries and artists over the years. She recognized Miriam and Elizabeth in two paintings, but wondered at the stern, unsmiling man in another. A plaque on the bottom of the frame proclaimed it to be James Anders, who she had never met, but she wondered how such a man could have been a father to the free-spirited Miriam. Elizabeth bore some resemblance to her daughter, but Rose could see no resemblance between James and Miriam, either in looks or expression. She and Miriam had never been more than acquaintances in finishing school, but Rose had always admired her free spirit and her refusal to conform to the behavior expected of a debutante, and it had been Miriam who had helped inspire her to go her own way.

After Miriam had told her where to find Jack on the Titanic, four years earlier, Rose had gone to him at the bow. She had been nervous at first, wondering if she was doing the right thing in turning her back on the life she knew, but she had thought of how Miriam had done the same thing, and it had given her the courage to make the decision that had changed her life forever.

Rose was brought back to the present as they entered the kitchen. In stark contrast to the hallways they had walked through, the kitchen was warm and sunny. An older woman bustled around a large stove, cooking the enormous amount of food needed to feed both the servants and the lady of the house and her guests. Several younger women worked at the table and counters, mixing, chopping, and putting food away.

The three children stared at the cooks and at the enormous amount of food. They always had enough to eat, but never this much, and never such a variety of foods. Christopher's attention was caught by a large cookie jar. He stared at it until his mother tapped him lightly on the shoulder and shook her head, reminding him that it wasn't polite to stare.

Mary and Nadia stood quietly, watching the activity in the kitchen, though it was obvious that Mary was itching to run around and look at everything. Neither girl remembered the house, or the kitchen, though they knew the maid who had led them to the kitchen. She had often accompanied Elizabeth on trips to see them.

One of the younger cooks saw the children and Rose standing in the doorway and motioned for them to sit at the table. Christopher grinned widely when she took a large plate and opened the cookie jar, covering the platter with a variety of sweets. Mary and Nadia watched eagerly as well, but were more polite than the three-year-old boy, sitting still without being told until the platter was placed on the table.

Rose sighed inwardly at the eager expressions of the three children. They frequently got cookies at home—she had become very good at making them—but she supposed that it was different to eat cookies at Grandma's house, especially when Grandma's house was a mansion. She didn't really remember what she had thought of visiting her grandmother as a little girl, but supposed that she must have felt much the same way.

The cook brought glasses of milk for the children. "There you go," she told them, watching them dig eagerly into the snack. She turned to Rose. "Would you like the same, Ma'am, or would you like something else?"

"I would like a cup of tea, if you have it," Rose requested, having already noticed a boiling teapot on the stove.

"Certainly, Ma'am." The young cook brought over a delicate cup and saucer, pouring tea into the cup.

"Thank you." Rose sipped the tea, then added a little milk and sugar to it, just the way she liked it. She sometimes drank tea at home, too. John, like many Englishmen, was fond of the beverage, so Rose had plenty of opportunities to drink it herself.

She watched the three children enjoy themselves, nibbling on a couple of cookies herself. Once the children were full of cookies and milk, Elizabeth's maid directed them to an area in the back yard still set with small benches and a swing set; a play area for the child Miriam had once been.

The three children played contentedly for several hours, although Rose had to warn each of them about not leaving the play area and going into the garden. The active, curious youngsters were inclined to pick flowers, and in Christopher's case, take them apart to see what they were made of. Rose doubted that Elizabeth would want the three children running roughshod over her carefully groomed garden, so she took care to keep them in the play area.

Finally, around six o'clock, John came to bring the four of them in. They were going to have dinner with Elizabeth before returning home in a car driven by her chauffeur. The three children, delighted by the idea of a car ride, rushed inside to wash up for dinner.

"What's going on?" Rose asked John as soon as the children were out of earshot. 

He hesitated, reluctant for some reason to tell her exactly what Elizabeth had offered to him. He was trying to think of what to say when Elizabeth herself appeared at the door, telling them that it was time for dinner.

"I'll tell you later," he promised Rose, walking into the house and leaving her staring after him.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

By the following evening, John had still not told Rose what was going on. Rose stood at the sink, washing the dinner dishes, still wondering what was going on. His secrecy surprised her. He had never seemed to her to be the type who would be embarrassed over not receiving an inheritance; indeed, he had never expected one. There was no reason to hide from her the fact that the girls might have received something; certainly, she would never try to take it from them. But there was also no reason for him to avoid the subject if Mary and Nadia had received nothing. The two children had no idea what was going on, and thus expected nothing.

She wondered briefly if he and the girls might have received something, but not herself and Christopher. In that case, he might be trying to avoid hurting her with the news; not that she had expected anything, anyway. She was no relation to the Anders, not even by marriage, though Christopher called Elizabeth Anders Grandma just as Mary and Nadia did.

Rose looked up as John came back into the kitchen, propping the door open to keep an eye on the three children playing in the main room. Allegro followed him, lying down in front of the open door and licking his paws. Squeals of laughter came from the room as the three children played some game.

Rose glanced out the door to be sure Christopher was all right. He and the girls usually got along, but Mary and Nadia were older and bigger than him, and sometimes he became the toy. As long as the giggles continued, she wasn't concerned, but occasionally the older children got too rough with the three-year-old, whether on purpose or not. At times, the girls got upset with Christopher, who would sometimes play with their belongings without permission, or tease them, particularly Mary. Rose had tried again and again to break her son of the habit of teasing Mary, but he never seemed to learn. Possibly, Mary herself would break him of the habit, but Rose doubted it. All the yelling and complaining only made Christopher enjoy teasing her more.

Tonight, however, the three children were getting along. They sat in a circle on the floor, chanting something and occasionally getting up and running around the room, playing a game that made sense only to them. Rose watched as Christopher stopped and attempted to stand on his head, drawing giggles from the girls at his clumsiness. Of course, neither Mary nor Nadia were any better at such stunts, so the boy would undoubtedly be laughing at them before long.

Rose looked at John. He was looking at his folded hands, his expression pensive, as though trying to decide what to say to her. He glanced up when he realized she was watching him.

"Elizabeth has offered me a job," he told her, "and I have accepted."

Rose had turned back to the dishes, but looked up again at his announcement. "What kind of job?"

"As a manager for Anders. She inherited everything from her late husband, and she is looking for people who can be a bridge between the management and the workers. I have experience both as a worker and as a foreman, so she thinks I can do this."

Rose was silent for a moment. "It's a great opportunity for you," she said at last, turning to dry the stack of dishes.

"You don't sound very happy."

"I suppose you'll be moving uptown, taking your place in the higher social strata."

"I suppose I will...if it works out. It's too soon to tell what will happen."

"Be careful if you move up in society. It looks so nice on the outside, but inside...there's a lot of backbiting, snobbery, and clannish behavior. The upper class doesn't like to let outsiders in, especially new money."

"I hardly think I'll be moving into the ranks of the upper class."

"You will...financially, anyway. I've known you for four years, and if anyone can succeed, it's you. Just be careful that you don't forget your beginnings. Many people do...and then they look down on those whose circumstances are humbler than theirs, and forget that they were once a part of those humble beginnings, too."

Memories of her own, much higher, beginnings ran through her mind. Not everyone wanted to be a part of the upper class. What she had told John was true—the upper class looked bright and glamorous to an outsider, but only one who had lived amongst them knew what it was really like. To be sure, it wasn't all bad—there certainly were advantages to being wealthy and high-status, and the upper class, like any other group, had its share of genuinely good people—but she had no desire to ever return to that life.

The life she had chosen was harder than the one she had left behind, but it was livelier and more challenging. Had she remained among the upper class, she would never have known the joys or trials of raising the children—or even her own child. Most likely, her mother would have discreetly sent her away somewhere to have her baby, and Christopher would have been put up for adoption. Then, she would have returned from "school" or from her "visit with relatives", and been quickly married off to avoid another scandal, if not to Cal, then to some other man.

Still, she wasn't entirely satisfied with the life she was living, either. She liked and respected John, and loved the girls as though they were her own daughters, but this wasn't the way she had envisioned living when she had stepped off the Carpathia four years earlier. She no longer lived under the restrictions of the upper class, but in some ways her new life was equally restrictive. She lived in John's apartment, ate the food he provided, and cared for his home and children, but she hadn't really progressed much from the time when she had been Rose DeWitt Bukater. Although she was no longer under the control of her mother and Cal, she had other duties and responsibilities, leaving little time for her to pursue her dreams.

She was safe and well-provided for, but she had been growing more and more restless, especially since Mary had started school, reducing the amount of work she had to do. She had been living with the Calverts for four years, but she had done little to follow her dreams. Her responsibilities to the children in her care made it difficult to take the time to try other things, and while John had never tried to restrict her activities, she suspected that he might not approve of her taking time away from the job she was hired to do.

Her job was good—certainly much better than working in a sweatshop—but it wasn't what she wanted out of life. Still, could she leave her charges behind, and expose her son to the uncertainties of life? She wanted to experience all that life had to offer, but she had responsibilities to others besides herself.

Rose looked over again as John spoke to her.

"It would mean more money," he told her, referring to the new position for which he had been hired. "I could hire more help, so you wouldn't have to work as hard. You would have more time to spend with Christopher, more time to do the things you want."

In that moment, Rose made her decision. As hard as it would be to leave the Calverts behind, it was time to move on. John didn't need her services anymore, and the girls were old enough that they no longer needed a full-time nanny. She could go her own way without the guilt of leaving them in need.

She shook her head. "I won't be coming with you," she told him. "I lived as a member of the upper class once, and I won't do it again—not even as a servant." She turned once again to look at him. "I've been thinking about this for a long time, John. I was planning to stay until Nadia started school, when you would no longer need me to watch her. I'm twenty-one years old, and I've done little in my life. There's so many things I want to do before I settle down—travel, see what's in the world, perhaps start a career. I've lived in New York City for four years now, and I lived in Philadelphia before that. Aside from going to Europe a couple of times, and going to finishing school in upstate New York, I haven't really been anywhere. I have a three-year-old son, but I'm not married, and I never have been. I want more out of life than just domestic work."

"If I were to succeed in this job, and move uptown and hire more staff, you would be in charge of them—running the household, so to speak. You wouldn't be so much a maid as a manager yourself."

"But it isn't what I want." Rose sat down at the table. "John, please try to understand. It's not that I dislike this job, or you, or Mary and Nadia. I just feel that it's time for me to move on, to find my place in the world."

"And what about Christopher? What will you do with him while you're making your place in the world?"

"He'll come with me, of course. He's my son, and I will do everything I can to see that he is provided for. But I can't go back to the world I left—not even for his sake. I don't want him growing up in that world."

"I could refrain from joining the upper class. I never aspired to it, never expected to be a part of it. The middle class would suit me well enough, and Mary and Nadia, too."

Rose looked at him, surprised. "You would do that for me? Give up the chance to be a member of high society?"

"I...yes, I would."

Rose gave him a curious look. Why would he give up the chance at the power and status that came with being a member of the upper class, and the opportunity for his daughters to gain that same status, something that most immigrant children never would?

She voiced the question. "Why?"

John looked at her, a little uncomfortably. Rose suspected that his feelings for her were stronger than he let on, but she had never been sure. Was it because he cared for her that he would give up so much, or was it for the sake of his daughters, who had grown attached to Rose over the years?

"Mary and Nadia need you," he told her at last. "You've become like a mother to them."

Rose nodded. The girls treated her as though she were their mother, though they still called her Aunt Rose. Neither of them remembered their own mothers, so far as she could tell, though Nadia still sometimes called out in her sleep in a foreign language, one that she never spoke consciously. Could she leave them, after being their caretaker for so many years?

"I'd keep in touch," she assured him, feeling guilty even as she said the words. Both girls had lost their mothers; Mary had lost two mothers. But Rose wouldn't be lost to them; she would simply be moving on. She was only a nanny, only a caretaker...but she knew that the girls trusted her, and would be devastated if she left. But if she stayed, her own bitterness toward the life that she lived would eventually drive them apart. This wasn't what she wanted out of life. There were so many things that she wanted to do, so many places that she wanted to see, and she couldn't do that if she stayed. But could she simply leave them behind?

As though reading her thoughts, John told her, "They'd miss you, especially Nadia. Mary—Mary is strong. She's used to people leaving. But Nadia..." He shook his head. "I don't know how Nadia would handle it."

Rose remembered all too well how devastated Nadia had been by the sinking of the Titanic and the loss of her mother, but she knew as well that being cared for by a bitter, unhappy woman wasn't the answer—and that was certainly what she would become in time. She would always look at the girls and think of what she had given up for them, of what might have been—and they would all suffer for it. Were they her own children, Rose would have had no qualms about taking them with her as she headed out into life, but they weren't hers; she couldn't take them with her, and she knew that John would not give up his career so that Rose could fulfill her dreams.

"Nadia is growing up, John. She's not a baby anymore. In a few months, she'll be going to school. She'll make new friends outside of her own home. She won't...won't need me. She'll have you, and Mary, and...whoever you hire to help care for them. And...and I'll still be around. I'll write often, come to visit if I can."

"And they'll still feel abandoned."

"In time...in time they'll understand. If I stay, eventually I will come to resent them, to resent the fact that I never even tried to do the things I've dreamed of. I would be unhappy, and ultimately, so would they."

"You wouldn't have to be a nanny and housekeeper. You could do anything you want...establish a career, travel. I'm sure they'd enjoy traveling with you."

"And how would you then explain my presence in your home?" Rose smiled ruefully. "You can explain a nanny for your children, but an unmarried woman living in your home, working for herself? I just don't think it would work. Especially not with Christopher. I know how people can talk, and it would be nothing short of scandalous."

"You could become my wife."

Rose stared at him, not quite believing what she had heard. "What?"

"I said, you could become my wife. Then there would be no problem of your living with me, being a mother to Mary and Nadia. It would give Christopher the legitimacy of my name, too—if you wanted."

"John, I..." Rose didn't know what to say. She had lived with him for four years, had cared for his children—but she didn't love him in the way he deserved, in the way she had vowed she would love the man she married. She liked him, respected him—but she didn't love him. She wasn't ready to love again, even four years after Jack's death. She wasn't ready to make the decision to settle down, to stay with anyone for the rest of her life. It would be easy to marry John, and her life would be stable and serene. There would be no struggle, no worry over where the next meal was coming from, or if she had the resources to give her son what he needed.

It would be easy, but it wouldn't be right. John would be happy with her for a while, and she might even be content with him for a time, but eventually they would come to despise each other. She wasn't ready to be tied down, and he needed a wife who could truly commit herself to him, as Miriam had. Maybe one day she would be ready to settle down, and marry, and have more children, but not yet.

"I can't," she told him, looking down. "I'm just...I'm not ready to settle down, to marry. I..."

"You would still be able to do the things you want," he assured her. "Establish your own career, travel...anything you want to do."

Rose shook her head. It sounded so tempting...the ability to do the things she wanted, without having to worry about what the future would hold—but it wouldn't be right. John was a good man, and she couldn't use him that way. If she were to marry him now, it would be no different than if she had married Cal—she would be marrying him for what he could give her, not because she loved him. It wouldn't be fair to either of them, or to the children who would be caught in the middle.

"No, John." She spoke softly. "It wouldn't be right. I...I don't love you—not in the way you deserve. I'm not ready to...to love again, to marry anyone. I need to strike out on my own, to see if I can do it, whatever the consequences. Maybe someday, I'll be ready—but not now. I would wind up hurting you, and I don't want to do that. You're a good man, and you deserve better than that." She stood, untying her apron and draping it over the chair.

"Rose..."

"I'm sorry, John. I don't want to hurt you, and someday you'll see that I was right." She turned to leave the kitchen, then turned back for a moment. "I will stay until Nadia starts school—long enough to let the girls understand why I'm leaving, and that it has nothing to do with them—or with you. I...I promise to keep in touch, to write often. If I am nearby, I will visit...but I have to move on. I can't stay where I am, and never know if it was the right thing to do or not. No matter what happened, I would always wonder if I should have gone my own way, and I would wind up taking it out on you and the children." She turned to leave again.

"Rose."

She glanced back at John.

"If things don't work out, if you ever need help, I'll be here. You can come back any time, if you need to."

Rose nodded. "Thank you, John. I'll remember that, and...I hope that life goes well for you, that you succeed in your work—and that you find a woman who will be right for you, who can give you the love you deserve."

With that, she walked out of the kitchen, closing the door quietly behind her, her mind full of thoughts of the future.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

September 1, 1916

Over the months that followed her decision to leave and strike out on her own, Rose contemplated where to go. At first, she thought that she might stay in New York City, where things were familiar, and where she and Christopher would be able to see the Calverts often.

After a few weeks, however, she realized how awkward it would be for her to stay in the same city as John. They had been a little uncomfortable with each other since his proposal, neither knowing quite what to say to the other. The professional employer-employee boundaries had been crossed, and there was no going back. To stay near to him would be difficult for them both.

At last, Rose decided to make the separation as complete as she could. Even after several years of putting aside her dreams for others, she still wanted to try to become an actress. The best places to pursue this goal were New York and Hollywood. After a great deal of thought and agonizing over her decision, she decided to pull up stakes and move herself and Christopher to California.

It was harder than Rose expected to tell the girls that she was leaving. Mary was thrilled at the idea of knowing a real, live movie star, making it easier for her to accept Rose's leaving, but Nadia cried inconsolably when told that her Aunt Rose was moving across the country, leaving them behind. Rose felt guilty, but knew that it was for the best.

Christopher viewed the coming move as one of the great adventures his mother had told him stories about. He rattled on about all the fun things they could do and see, but he didn't really understand that Uncle John, Mary, and Nadia would not be coming. Rose knew that he would be upset when he found out that it was just going to be the two of them, but she didn't know how to explain the change in a way that he would understand.

*****

Early in the morning on September 1, 1916, the Calverts escorted the Dawsons to the train station. Rose had told John that he didn't have to escort them there—he was in the midst of moving to a new home uptown, as well as getting Mary and Nadia enrolled in a school there—but he insisted. The girls clung to her as they rode the El to the train station, realizing now that Aunt Rose really was leaving, and it might be a long time before they saw her again.

John had insisted that it wasn't a problem to escort them to the train station. Most of their belongings had been moved from the old apartment, and Rose's packing and leaving had almost completed the job. Rose had looked at the Calverts' new home, helping the girls to get comfortable with their new living quarters and registering them at their new school. She had seen them off on their first day there, Mary striding confidently into the crowd, Nadia clinging to Rose's hand as long as she could.

Mary had always been more confident than Nadia, and now, with all the changes taking place, Nadia was more shy than ever. The six-year-old was worried about moving, about going to school, and about Rose leaving, and as the time for Rose to leave had drawn closer, she had clung ever more tightly to her.

As the sounds of the train became audible, all five of them knew that it was time to say good-bye. Even Christopher had now realized that he and his mother were going somewhere alone, though he still didn't understand where or why.

Rose sat on a bench in the train station with the others, her bags at her feet and Christopher in the lap. None of them moved until the train pulled into the station, letting off some passengers and letting others on. Though she knew that she was now following her dreams, Rose would miss the Calverts. They had become her family over the years, just as much as Christopher. Though she didn't love John as a potential husband, she did care for him and respect him. He was a good man, one of the best she had known, and that was why she had rejected his offer of marriage in order to go out on her own. She cared too much to hurt him, as she knew she would if she married him for the wrong reasons. Mary and Nadia were like daughters to her, but the time had come for her to move on.

As the passengers leaving the train thinned out, Rose sighed, setting Christopher on the floor and picking up their bags. She gave Christopher his little bag to carry, then picked up the rest herself, carrying the bags with one hand and holding Christopher's hand with the other. She didn't want him getting lost in the shuffle of the train station.

John, Mary, and Nadia walked beside them as they made their way to the train. When they reached the boarding area, Mary hugged Rose tightly, trying to hide her tears.

"Aunt Rose, are you really going to be a movie star?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know, Mary, but I'm going to try. If I get to be a movie star, you'll know all about it."

"I want to be an actress, too, when I grow up. Write me letters about Hollywood, and send me movie magazines if you get to be a star, okay?"

"I will, Mary. I'll send you some magazines even if I'm not a star."

Mary made a face. "They won't be as good if you're not in them."

Rose couldn't help but laugh. "Thank you, Mary. I'll do my best."

Mary turned her attention to Christopher, patting him on the head like a puppy and saying good-bye to him. Christopher looked annoyed, but it didn't faze her in the least. Nadia took her sister's place, hugging Rose and crying.

"I don't want you to go, Aunt Rose!" she wailed. "Please stay. I'll be good. I promise."

"You're always a good girl, Nadia," Rose assured her, getting choked up herself at the girl's pleading. "I promise I'll write, and come to visit if I can, but I need to go now. I'm moving to California. Maybe sometime all of you can come out and visit me."

Mary came over and hugged her sister. "Aunt Rose is going to be a movie star. She's going to be famous."

Nadia just cried more. "I don't want her to go. She'll never come back, just like my mother went away and never came back."

John picked the crying child up. "Nadia, your mother didn't leave you. Not on purpose. There was a horrible accident, and she died. She would have stayed if she could have. Aunt Rose isn't going to die. She's just going to move to California. You'll see her again, and she'll write you letters and send you pictures and magazines."

Rose hadn't realized that Nadia even remembered her mother, but apparently she did. She had never given any indication that she remembered anything before coming to the United States, but perhaps the strain of Rose's leaving had brought back the memories.

Tears in her eyes, Rose hugged Nadia, promising that she would see her again. In that moment, she almost changed her mind and decided to stay, but knew that she couldn't. She had to make her own way, live her own life. But she would always love the girls who had become like daughters to her.

Rose took Nadia from John, hugging her one last time. "You'll be all right, Nadia," she told the girl, setting her down and crouching down at eye-level. "You really will. I promise."

Nadia tried to stop crying. "I know, Aunt Rose. I'll be okay. I still have Daddy and Mary and Allegro."

"And your Grandma. And I'm still going to be around, just in a different part of the country. I'll write to you as often as I can, all right?"

"Okay." Nadia sniffed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. Rose had been trying to break her of that habit, but she didn't reprimand her this time. She just watched as Nadia hurried over to Mary, hugging her sister.

Rose looked at John. "Well, I guess this is it," she said, not sure what to say, now that she was leaving. "Good-bye, John. I hope that things go well for you."

"Good-bye, Rose, and good luck. Be sure to write us about whatever you're doing. The girls will want to see your movies, even if you only have a small part."

"Thank you. I'm going to do my best."

"You always have." He hesitated a moment, then went on. "But if things don't work out, if you ever need to start over, you can always come back here. You'll be welcome."

"I know, John. Thank you." Setting her bags down, she hugged him, surprising him by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Good-bye, John."

As the warning whistle sounded, Rose picked up her bags and took Christopher by the hand. Looking back at the Calverts once, she climbed onto the train, finding a seat beside a window. As the train pulled out of the station, she waved to them, not stopping until they were out of sight.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Rose's first few weeks in Los Angeles were not quite as she had hoped. After a week on the train, she and Christopher had arrived in the California city—only to be confronted with their first problem. They had no place to live, and many places refused to rent to a single mother.

Rose had argued that she was a widow trying to make a life for herself and her son, but many landlords were unsympathetic anyway. Some wanted to know why she hadn't remarried, or why she had come to California with no family, no job, and a small child to care for. A few noticed her lack of a wedding ring and didn't believe her story about being a widow.

Finally, toward the end of a long day of searching, Christopher in tow, Rose was able to rent a small room in a boarding house. The building was ancient, probably a century old, but it was a place to stay. The landlady didn't care who lived there as long as they paid their rent and were quiet.

The next day, Rose confronted her second problem—unemployment. She had some money left from her work in New York, but not much, especially not with a child to feed and clothe. She couldn't take Christopher with her when looking for work—few employers wanted a three-year-old as part of the bargain—but she couldn't leave him alone, either. He was too young to watch himself.

Rose had never thought much about the problem of what to do with her son while she was working before—she had just naturally taken him along wherever she and John's daughters went. However, jobs as a nanny or governess were few and far between here, and she doubted that many of them would want to hire a woman whose goal was to become an actress. Actresses were still considered to be little better than prostitutes, and her single motherhood cemented the image.

By the second day of searching for a job, Rose found a solution to the problem of what to do with Christopher. An elderly woman in her building had taken a liking to the boy, saying that he reminded her of her grandson. For a few pennies a day, she was willing to take care of the three-year-old while his mother tried to make a living.

Rose was grateful for her help, but knew that she couldn't afford to pay the woman to watch her son for long unless she found work. The first places she looked were the movie studios, but aspiring actresses were a dime a dozen, and she was unwilling to do what some did to get ahead. Casting couches and short, pornographic films did not appeal to her.

She continued her search for a way to support herself and her son, trying to avoid the sweatshops that many women wound up working in. She had worked in one once, and had hated it. It was not an experience she cared to repeat, and in order to make a living for the two of them she would have to have Christopher work beside her. Having seen the young children who were often employed in such places, she had no wish to put her son to work in one of them. The hours were far too long for an adult, and would be much worse for a small child. Safety was not a high priority in many sweatshops, and she had seen people, both children and adults, maimed and crippled by accidents. The pay was low, the environment stifling, both mentally and physically. Rose rejected the idea of a sweatshop job. She would return to New York first.

Fortunately, Rose had far more skills now than she had when she had first stepped off the Carpathia in 1912. She had learned to cook, clean, do laundry, sew, and care for children. She was quite capable of being a cook or a maid if need be, and by her third day of searching she turned to asking for jobs at the numerous restaurants in the city.

The first few rejected her outright, saying that she was too inexperienced and lacked references. She persisted, however—she had to find a way to support herself and Christopher—and eventually some of the lower class restaurants began to consider her.

Most of the places she visited did not need more cooks, and the people working in them did the cleaning, eliminating the need for a separate cleaning woman. Waitresses, however, were often in demand, and it was these jobs she soon learned to ask for first.

Rose had never been a professional waitress, but she had seen such work done, and she had served food at home in New York. Oftentimes waitressing required heavy lifting, but Rose had spent sufficient time moving furniture, carrying sopping wet laundry, and lifting children that she had grown strong.

The first three places she asked for jobs at sent her away, the managers not believing that she was strong enough for the work required. The fourth had no openings of any sort. At the fifth, however, they were willing to give her a chance.

*****

The manager led Rose to a corner table, out of the way of the hustle and bustle of customers and waitresses. Gesturing to her to have a seat, he sat across from her and began the interview.

"What's your name?"

"Rose Dawson, sir." It was only the second interview Rose had gotten, so just being given a chance gave her hope.

"Miss...Mrs...how do you call yourself?"

"Mrs. Dawson, sir. I'm a widow."

The manager nodded sympathetically but didn't comment. "All right, Mrs. Dawson, why do want to work here?"

This was one of the hardest parts of the interview, Rose knew. If she told the truth and said that she wanted the job to earn a living, she would be almost guaranteed of not getting it. She had to find an excuse for wanting the job that he would accept.

"It looks like a lively, friendly place to work," she told him. "I like working with people, and food service is something I have always enjoyed." She mentally crossed her fingers as she said this. Cooking and serving food was all right, but it wasn't at the top of her list of favorite activities. Still, a job was a job, and it certainly looked better than a sweatshop.

"What kind of experience do you have, Mrs. Dawson?"

"I worked as a cook for a family in New York City. I also did the shopping and menu selection."

"We really don't need another cook here right now," he told her. "What we're looking for is waitresses."

"I've served food, too," Rose replied. "I have an excellent record—very few spills, and none of them on the person I was serving." In fact, most of the spills when she had been working for the Calverts had been the result of something hot sloshing onto her hands, or by the unexpected obstacle of a small child, toy, or dog. She had once spilled gravy on Allegro, but after jumping up, startled, the dog hadn't been at all offended, lying down where he was and licking the gravy off the floor and himself.

"How heavy a load can you lift?" the manager asked her, looking as though he doubted she were strong enough for the job.

_Here it comes_, Rose thought. _You aren't strong enough. I'm sorry, but perhaps another restaurant would be a better place for you._ An idea suddenly occurred to her. She rejected it for a moment, then changed her mind. What could it hurt? The worst she could be told was no.

Standing, she carefully lifted the table, still spread with dirty dishes and condiments. The heavy piece of furniture rattled somewhat, but she lifted it to chin level and held it there for a moment, not spilling a thing. Just as carefully, she set it back down and took her seat.

The manager stared at her, half-surprised, half-amused. "I'm stronger than I look," Rose told him, lifting her chin.

"That table's not that heavy—maybe twenty pounds," he argued, looking her in the eye.

"And it's covered with dishes. If I can lift that without a problem, surely I can carry plates and trays to people."

"Without dropping them?"

"I didn't drop the table. In fact, I rarely drop anything. It's too hard to replace items that are broken."

He chuckled. "Well, Mrs. Dawson, you certainly have an interesting way of demonstrating your skills. I'm going to give you a chance to prove yourself. If you can wait tables adequately for the rest of the week, you'll be hired on permanently. I may also need you to help occasionally in the kitchen, especially at peak business hours. Waitresses are allowed to complete the cooking process if they knew what they are doing, so you may yet get to cook—but only if you need to get food to a customer quickly."

"I won't disappoint you, sir. I can do this job."

"Well, we'll see. You have to bring the food quickly, take orders, and be sure to bring the customers the right items. In addition, you have to be polite to the customers, no matter how ill-mannered they are. You will have to put up with crying children and angry adults. Do you still think you can do it?"

Since everything he described was something that she had experience with, in one form or another, Rose quickly nodded. "Of course."

"All right, Mrs. Dawson. You're hired. The first week you will be paid fifteen cents an hour, which will be raised to twenty cents if you continue beyond that time. For every six months here, I will add an additional one cent an hour to your pay. You will work nine hours a day, from seven o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon. If more help is needed, you will have the option of working additional hours. Your days are Monday through Saturday. We're closed on Sunday. Is this acceptable to you, Mrs. Dawson?"

Rose quickly calculated the amount of money she would be making against her expenses. Fifteen cents an hour for the first week, then twenty cents an hour after that. It would come out to $1.80 a day, and $10.80 a week, once she got to the twenty cent an hour rate. Her rent was ten dollars a month, and the cost of food for herself and Christopher was about the same. She paid three cents an hour for the old woman to watch Christopher, coming out to thirty cents a day, between the hours she spent working and the time spent traveling to and from work. Money would be tight, but they would manage.

"I'll take it," she told him, smiling. It looked like a decent place to work, and she would be able to make enough to live on.

"There is one other thing I neglected to mention," he told her, sitting back and smiling. "Employees get one-third of the cost off of food items here at their lunch times. In addition, if there is food that we are discarding at the end of the day—seven o'clock Monday through Thursday and ten o'clock on Friday and Saturday—people are welcome to take home whatever they want of it. I realize that some people have families to feed, and food that isn't acceptable to paying customers is still acceptable when it's free."

Rose nodded, taking a mental note to be there at the end of the day if she could. Christopher rarely cared how old food was, as long as it still tasted good, and she would take what she could get. She had long since stopped expecting food to be of the highest quality, finding that it was usually good enough even if it didn't cost a lot.

"Thank you, sir. When do I start?"

"Right now, if you can. You'll be paid at the end of the week. Oh, and the waitresses put their tips into a common jar and split it evenly at the end of the week. Tips can be the difference between paying the rent or not at times, so serve the customers well. They tip more if you do."

Remembering how generous Cal had sometimes been with tips, Rose nodded. He had only been showing off how rich he was, but if she could garner extra income from a customer's desire to show off, she wouldn't complain.

"I'm ready to work," she told him. "Where do I start?"

He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Follow me."


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

As the weeks passed, Rose continued to try to break into the moving picture industry. Every day, after work, she would go to one studio or another, or to an agency, and try to find work as an actress. She often felt guilty about leaving Christopher with someone else so much, but she did what she had to in order to follow her dreams.

It was a long time before she finally found film work. The competition for work was fierce, and she was unwilling to do many of the things that other women did to get roles. At times, she was tempted to "audition" on a casting couch, but always changed her mind. Too many would-be actresses found themselves used that way, with the promised film roles never materializing, and she had her reputation to think of. What would people think if they found out that she had traded sex for film work? It wasn't worth it. She had a young child to care for, and she didn't even want to think about what he would say when he got older and questioned such things.

In spite of the difficulty in finding film work, Rose persisted. It wasn't that she needed the money—she made enough to keep herself and Christopher fed, sheltered, and clothed—but she had always wanted to try acting, and no amount of being turned down was going to dissuade her.

Finally, after nearly three months of looking for work in the moving picture industry, Rose found her first bit of success. A new agency had opened, one that specialized in finding extras. Two of the people that Rose had asked for work from before had started the agency, and they admired her persistence. In spite of her lack of experience and the fact that she had a small child and no husband, they took a chance and hired her. Many new actresses had far more scandalous backgrounds, and her persistence showed them that at least she was reliable.

It wasn't long before Rose was working as an extra in the moving pictures. At first, she worried that someone from her old life would see her and come looking for her, but when no one did she decided that either she wasn't recognizable, no one cared to look for her, or they simply weren't watching moving pictures. Whatever the reason, she was safe.

Her first moving picture roles weren't much. She didn't have any lines—not that they would have been heard anyway—and usually just blended into the crowd. After a while, however, she became a little better known, and was able to stand out a bit more. She still didn't have any lines, but by March she was given her first role as a character who had a name and was acknowledged in the credits.

With her newfound success as an actress, Rose shortened the number of hours she worked at the restaurant. Fortunately, the manager was used to the vagaries of actresses' schedules, and allowed her to arrange her hours around her filming schedule. Once she got her first decently paying role, Rose quit working there, concentrating her efforts upon her career as an actress.

John, Mary, and Nadia wrote to her regularly. The girls had seen every picture she had been in, even if she was only on the screen for a few seconds. Mary told anyone who would listen that she knew a real movie star, and went back and saw several films twice.

Rose was able to bring Christopher with her for her second role where she stood out from the crowd. Her character didn't have a name, and she wasn't acknowledged in the credits, but she was getting better known and better paid. For this particular part, she played a young mother running from a burning building with her child in her arms. She had had to bring Christopher with her one day when his caretaker was ill, and the director convinced her to run from the building with him in her arms. Christopher was frightened at first, and then enthralled by what was going on. No matter how often the scene had to be re-shot, he was still fascinated by what was going on. He had inherited his mother's talent for dramatics, and acted very convincingly for such a small child. He, too, was paid for his work, and Rose put the money away for when he was older, possibly to help send him to college.

Rose's career as an actress progressed slowly but steadily, as she moved up in the moving picture industry. She still refused to compromise her morals for better parts and better pay, but her sheer stubbornness, combined with talent and an ability to learn quickly, moved her forward in her chosen profession.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

March 1917

"Mrs. Dawson! Mrs. Dawson, wait a moment!"

Rose turned as one of the assistant directors came hurrying up to her, breathing hard. He had been running all over the lot, searching for her.

"Yes?" Rose stopped and turned to face him, a bit impatiently. It was growing late, and she was eager to get home to her son.

"Mr. Hinesdale would like to speak with you before you leave."

Mr. Hinesdale was the director of the moving picture Rose was currently acting in. He was planning upon starting a new picture soon, one about Broadway, and Rose had submitted her resume to him, hoping that she might be cast as one of the chorus girls he was looking for. She had always loved dancing, though she had done little of it in the past few years. Still, she had thought it was worth a try, so she had applied for the role of a chorus girl.

"Where is he?" she asked, looking around. The assistant had obviously traveled all over the filming area before finding her.

"In his office. He wants to see you immediately."

Hinesdale was something of a maverick, not settling down to work with any one studio. Instead, he moved from company to company, making a variety of different films and employing different actors. His goal, Rose had heard, was to found his own moving picture company, but so far that dream had not been fulfilled. Still, he was one of the best directors she had worked with, even if she caught only a few glimpses of him.

Nodding, Rose turned and headed in the direction of Hinesdale's makeshift office. Since he never stayed with any one studio for long, he had no permanent office with any of them. Instead, he set up working space wherever it was available—in an empty warehouse on the edge of the lot this time. It was a long walk, but Rose made it in record time. If only she could get the part she wanted!

Hinesdale's secretary sat at her desk in front of the cordoned off area that served as the director's working space. Engrossed in typing, she hardly looked up when Rose came into the room.

"Yes?" she asked after a few minutes, looking up at Rose.

"Mr. Ledesma told me that Mr. Hinesdale wanted to see me."

"Rose Dawson?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead. Mr. Hinesdale is waiting for you."

Rose hurried into Hinesdale's office, her heart pounding with both anticipation and nervousness. The role that she wanted wasn't big—it certainly wouldn't make her a star—but she wanted it anyway. It seemed like forever since she had really had the opportunity to dance. She had done a few small dancing parts, and had gone out dancing with a couple of young men, but it never been as much as she wanted. She knew that the chorus girl roles included dancing; the audition notice had specifically said so.

"Mr. Hinesdale?" Rose stopped in front of the desk where he was working furiously, editing this and that in the script for tomorrow's filming.

"Mrs. Dawson. Have a seat." He gestured to the wooden chair beside her.

Rose sat down, looking at him expectantly. She tried not to hope too hard that she would get this role—if she didn't expect much, she couldn't be disappointed—but the hope was there, nonetheless.

"Mrs. Dawson, I would like to speak with you about your performance today."

Rose's heart sank. She knew she shouldn't have gone against the directions the extras had been given, but the scene had been so much fun, and the atmosphere so stimulating, that she had spontaneously begun to dance. It had been a crowd scene, involving a group of people watching a parade of returning soldiers from the Civil War. She had not been the only one dancing—a group of female extras had been instructed to do so—but it wasn't what she was supposed to have been doing. She was supposed to watch the soldiers go by, then run out and hug one of them—her "sweetheart", returned safe and sound from the war.

Mentally, she kissed the prospect of being cast as a chorus girl good-bye. Hinesdale was one of the best directors around, but he was also one of the sternest. He demanded perfection from everyone, including himself. Occasionally, he let the actors make their own decisions, but usually he ruled the scene with an iron fist. Rose doubted that her spontaneous dancing had raised her in his eyes.

"I took note of your dancing during one of the takes of the parade scene," he started. "Not exactly what you were told to do, but skillful nonetheless."

"Uh...thank you, sir," Rose told him, surprised at the indirect praise. She wished he would finish his lecture quickly and let her leave. It was after dark, and Christopher would be waiting for his mother.

"That take was the one we chose to use," he told her, surprising her yet again. She had expected that it would be thrown out.

_At least I'll be in that scene,_ she thought, suddenly realizing that her spontaneous behavior might get her fired. Being fired by such a well-known director would be a major set-back to her career. _I can always go back to waiting tables,_ she remembered, knowing that the restaurant would take her back if she wanted, but a career as a waitress wasn't exactly what she had had in mind when she came here. If that were her only prospect, she might as well have stayed in New York City, where she would be near to the people who had become her family.

"I was actually rather impressed with your skill as a dancer. I saw you in another moving picture where you danced, but you were only on the screen for a moment, blending in with the rest of the crowd."

Rose nodded, remembering the scene and the film. It had been a low-budget production of _Romeo and Juliet,_ one that had done amazingly well in the theaters. She had enjoyed working on it, although the familiar story brought back memories of her own lost love.

Fidgeting slightly, she looked across the desk at him, wishing that he would hurry and say whatever he had to say, and let her go. She could hear the sounds of people outside, arriving to film a night scene, and wanted to be off the lot before she got in the way.

"Mrs. Dawson, the reason that I called you in here is because of your dancing."

Rose groaned inwardly. This was it. She was about to be fired.

"I received your resume for a chorus girl role in my next picture, and that, combined with what I saw today, is enough to convince me." He stopped, looking at her.

"Ah...convince you of what, sir?"

"I want to cast you as one of the dancers in _Lights_."

Rose's heart leapt. Was she about to be given what she had hoped for?

"_Lights?_ Is that the title of your new moving picture?"

"Tentatively. I have been auditioning various actresses for this role, but thus far I haven't found one that suits. I have been working my way through the applications, looking for the best actress for this role. Yours, I must admit, was not on the list of people I planned to audition, but your performance today changed my mind. I was considering you for a chorus girl role—"

"Are—are you going to cast me as a chorus girl?" Rose asked, interrupting him. She could have bitten her tongue when she said this. It was never a good idea to interrupt an interviewer.

"No, I don't think so. I've pretty well filled the chorus girl roles. Your dance experience was sparse, to say the least."

Rose was growing confused. If he didn't want to cast her as a chorus girl, what did he want? That was the role she had applied for.

"Sir...I'm not sure I understand."

"Mrs. Dawson, after watching your performance today, I have another role in mind for you, if you're interested."

"Why...yes, I'm interested. What is it?"

"There are five main dancers in supporting roles, besides the star. The character I have in mind for you has no lines, but she does appear throughout the picture. Your main job would be dancing, although there are also some dressing room and street scenes. It isn't the biggest role, but I believe you are suited for it. Filming will begin in May, all done locally. There will be both day and night filming required, but you'll usually know ahead of time what I have planned. I am aware that you have a child to care for—Mr. Ledesma informed me of such. However, you will be paid well, and you can even bring your child with you if there is a caretaker available. What do you think, Mrs. Dawson?"

Rose was stunned by her sudden success—and a little suspicious. "What do I have to do to get this role?" she asked, eyeing him distrustfully.

"You need to sign this contract. Feel free to read it over first."

Rose quickly read over the papers, finding nothing objectionable in them. "You won't be requiring anything other...services?"

"You mean a few turns on the 'casting couch'?"

Rose nodded, looking him straight in the eye. She wanted the part, but she wasn't willing to sleep with him to get it.

"No, Mrs. Dawson. I can assure you, I do not choose actresses for their skill in the bedroom. Such things are not to my...interest."

Rose nodded, suddenly remembering a rumor she had heard about Hinesdale—that he might prefer men to women. The thought was oddly comforting. At least she could be sure he wouldn't demand more of her than she was willing to give. That is, if it was true.

Shrugging to herself, she decided that it didn't matter. Whether he preferred men or simply didn't use the casting couch as a way of choosing actresses, he wasn't likely to bother her. Reaching for a pen in the holder on the desk, she quickly signed the contract. "You have yourself an actress, Mr. Hinesdale." She pushed the signed papers back across the desk.

He nodded. "Wonderful, Mrs. Dawson. You will receive further instructions in the mail." When Rose's eyes involuntarily sought the clock on the wall, he added, "You may go now."

"Thank you, sir."

Rose practically skipped out of the warehouse. It was her first big role. In the months since she had come to California, she had sometimes despaired of ever getting anywhere in her chosen career. Of course, she had quickly learned that many would-be stars never had any success, but she wanted to be one of those who was successful. She had been extraordinarily lucky, she realized, as she set off down the darkened streets towards home. In just a few short months, she had gotten to a point that many people never reached, even after many years of work.

Hugging herself excitedly, Rose hurried on her way, eager to share her good news with her friends and neighbors.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

September, 1917

"Cut!"

Hinesdale's annoyed voice rang out over the sound of the music. Rose picked herself up off the floor, where she had fallen when another member of the cast had suddenly danced into her path and tripped her.

"Miss Hartman, how many times do I have to tell you to stay out of Mrs. Dawson's way?"

Nanette Hartman, the star of _Lights_, put her hands on her hips in irritation. "_She_ got in _my_ way."

"Mrs. Dawson was exactly where she was supposed to be. You all know the blocking here, especially you. Now, let's take it from the top."

Nanette shot Rose a snide look as the actresses reassembled on the stage. Rose rolled her eyes, trying to ignore her.

Hinesdale had begun filming _Lights_ in May. Nanette Hartman, a rising starlet, had been chosen for the starring role, while five other actresses were in the supporting dance roles. Rose enjoyed the work, except for the presence of Nanette, who had quickly managed to alienate everyone in the cast and crew.

Rose wished sincerely that Hinesdale had chosen another actress for the lead role, but she had to admit that Nanette was beautiful and talented. A natural blonde, Nanette had the frail look so often favored by audiences, and she put on a good public face. Her popularity with the public was the only thing that kept her working. With few exceptions, people who knew her personally disliked her.

Nanette had quickly fixated upon Rose as a threat, though for the life of her, Rose couldn't understand why. Nanette was younger than her, and already a fixture in the public eye. One of the actors in the cast had suggested that Nanette feared that Rose was more beautiful and talented than her, but she gave no credence to the idea. At twenty-two, Rose knew that she had to get her break soon, or she never would. She might continue acting for years, but she would never be a big star if it didn't happen soon. It might be, she thought, that Nanette felt threatened by Rose's ambition. The eighteen-year-old had been in pictures since the age of ten, but was only now rising to fame, while Rose's career was moving quickly, in spite of the fact that she had begun only a year earlier.

The starring actress had gone out of her way to make Rose miserable and make her look stupid, but much to her dismay, Rose shrugged off her insults and attempts to make her look bad. Rose's attention was focused on her work, and the actions of the prima donna star were of little concern. Hinesdale supported her, and as long as she was on his good side, Nanette had little power. The girl fancied herself to be the reason that the picture was being filmed, but Hinesdale could as easily have replaced her, had he chosen to.

To make matters worse, Rose's character, Charlotte, was supposed to worship Nanette's character, Madeleine. It took all of Rose's acting skill to do what Hinesdale wanted, but she succeeded, raising herself in the eyes of most of those around her. Nanette Hartman could be difficult, but Rose saw things through anyway.

As the dancers reassembled to re-shoot the scene, Rose thought about the reactions of others to her success. Mary and Nadia had been thrilled, especially when she sent them a publicity shot of herself, as well as a clipping from an industry newsletter in which she was mentioned. John had also written to congratulate her, but his response was more reserved. Rose suspected that he had hoped that she would return to New York.

As the music began again, Rose put the thought out of her head. John had been drafted and sent to Europe recently, leaving the girls in the care of Elizabeth Anders. He had written to her before he left, asking that she keep in contact with the girls and be there for them if anything happened to him. Rose had immediately written back, agreeing. Mary and Nadia were like daughters to her, and she had taken the opportunity to offer to let the girls and Elizabeth visit in December. She was still uncomfortable with the idea of seeing John, but she missed Mary and Nadia, and she thought that a change of scene might distract them from worrying about their father.

Whirling around, she kicked her legs up high, keeping with the choreography laid out for the dancers. In contrast to many directors, Hinesdale was also an expert choreographer, needing no help in putting the dance scenes together.

Rose loved every minute of it. Even when she arrived home exhausted from a long day of dancing, her muscles sore from the exertion, she still enjoyed it. She had been able to bring Christopher with her on some occasions, and the four-year-old boy loved watching her dance. When she was off-camera, he would try to dance her around, imitating what the male dancers were doing. She always laughed and humored him, though the small child was still too clumsy to really dance, and she was much too tall to really dance with him. Oftentimes she had picked him up, dancing around with him in her arms or sitting on her shoulders.

Most of the time, though, she was unable to bring Christopher with her. There was often no one to watch him, and she couldn't depend upon him to sit quietly for hours at a time. Inevitably, he would get bored and go looking for something to do. She had offered to let his baby-sitter bring him and watch some of the filming, but the elderly woman disliked making the long walk across the city, and she had no other transportation.

Rose had been gratified to find that she was not required to be on the set every day, and sometimes filming would only last half a day or so, giving her more time with her son. The pay wasn't top, but it was more than she had made as a waitress, and she had more time to relax and be with her child.

When she was filming, however, the work could be stringent. Hinesdale was a perfectionist, demanding the best from everyone. Some people grumbled, but Rose soon learned to respect him. He wasn't a hypocrite; he demanded the same perfection of himself that he demanded of everyone else. He was a harsh taskmaster at times, but he was fair.

Rose joined the line of dancers at the front of the stage, close to the cameras. Linking arms with Nanette and another actress, Julie, she kicked her feet high in the air—just as Nanette stepped out of line and tried, once again, to trip her.

Rose's foot was just coming down, and she gave the ill-tempered starlet a good kick in the shins. Nanette shrieked in outrage, just as Hinesdale shouted "Cut!"

"You bitch! You did that on purpose!" Nanette grabbed a handful of Rose's long red hair and yanked, eliciting a yelp of pain from her rival.

"You tripped me, you two-faced little slut!" Rose had had her fill of Nanette Hartman.

"I did not!"

"Yes, you did!"

Nanette slapped her. Rose immediately retaliated, driving a fist into the other woman's stomach. Nanette shrieked again, and fell on the floor, clutching her stomach.

"Miss Hartman, get up off the floor. I've had it up to here with your histrionics. You're not hurt."

Nanette just lay on the floor, continuing to hold her stomach. Rose imagined that she probably had caused the girl some pain. She hardly fit the ideal of the frail female. Years of work had put strong muscles on her.

"Mrs. Dawson, I commend your patience. This is the first time you've actually gotten back at her. However, we have been working on this five minute scene for five hours, and frankly, I'm getting tired of it. Miss Hartman, get up and get into place. And this time, stay out of Mrs. Dawson's way, or I'll cut you from the scene."

Slowly, Nanette got up, glaring at Rose. Rose looked back at her coldly, then turned away and went back to where the scene began.

"Bitch," Nanette whispered, low enough that only Rose could hear her.

Rose just looked at her, then made a gesture she hadn't made since she had been on the Titanic. Nanette looked shocked, then furious, but knew better than to try Hinesdale's patience further. He never made idle threats. She would be cut out of this, the opening scene, if she did anything else to her rival.

An hour later, they had finally shot the scene to Hinesdale's satisfaction. When he had dismissed them, Nanette flounced away with only a hateful look at Rose, retreating to her own dressing room. Rose ignored her, glad that she had only two more scenes to film with the detested starlet.

As she changed back into her street clothes, Julie came over to congratulate her.

"It's about time someone put Nanette Hartman in her place. She's been asking for it for months."

"I try not to let her get to me. She's not worth ruining my career over."

"At the rate she's going, she won't have a career before long. Hinesdale isn't known for his patience with prima donnas."

"I noticed." Rose turned to the mirror, wiping off her heavy makeup. She and Julie had become friends over the months of filming, brought together by their love of acting and their dislike of Nanette. Rose was the more tolerant of the two, having grown up with people who often displayed as much resentment and jealousy as Nanette, if in a more subdued manner. Julie, on the other hand, had come to Hollywood from a small, impoverished town in the South, with high hopes for her future. Nanette Hartman had quickly destroyed Julie's ideas of what Hollywood should be, and she harbored a great deal of resentment toward her.

"Well, we're almost done with this picture," Rose pointed out. "We won't have to deal with her after this."

"We hope." Julie wiped the makeup from her own face. "I wish someone would tell the world what she's really like. Maybe she'd get off her high horse if people didn't worship her so much."

"Ha." Rose snorted rudely. "I don't think that'll ever happen—unless, of course, someone comes up with a way to put people's voices in the pictures. That would end her career."

Julie laughed, a little bitterly. Nanette was beautiful and talented, but she was also possessed of a high, shrill voice that made people cringe—and that was her normal tone of voice.

"There's a party tonight," Julie told her, dabbing on a little regular makeup. "Are you going?"

Rose shook her head. "No. I need to get home."

"Come on, Rose. You need to get out more, let yourself be seen. How are you ever going to be a star if no one ever sees you?"

"I have a little boy at home, in case you've forgotten."

"It doesn't start until eight, and we aren't needed for filming tomorrow. Get dressed, have dinner with him, and then come to the party. You'll have all day with him tomorrow. Come on," she added when Rose hesitated. "You need to have a little fun. You know what they say about all work and no play..."

Rose laughed. "All right. I'll come. But you'll have to help me take Christopher to the beach tomorrow. And I can't stay out too late. He has nightmares if I don't come home and kiss him good night."

"Well, stay until eleven or twelve, then. I bet he'll be happy to get to stay up a little later. I always was."

"All right, all right. You've convinced me. I'll ask his baby-sitter to stay with him until I get home. If he stays up late, it means that I can sleep late, anyway. I'll just take him to the beach in the afternoon instead of the morning."

Julie grinned at her. "Rose, I'm going to teach you to have fun yet."


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

December 1917

Rose and Christopher stood in the train station, waiting for the train carrying Elizabeth, Mary, and Nadia to arrive. It was December 22, 1917, and a cool rain fell outside.

Christopher gripped his mother's hand, straining to see out the window. He wasn't sure of what was going on, only that his grandmother and cousins were coming to visit.

At last, the train pulled into the station. Rose hurried forward, holding Christopher's hand, as the passengers began to emerge from the train.

Elizabeth, Mary, and Nadia were among the last of the first class passengers to step down from the train. Loaded with suitcases and brightly wrapped packages, they emerged into the crowd.

Mary and Nadia caught sight of Rose first. Dropping their belongings, they raced to see her, exuberantly throwing their arms around her.

"Aunt Rose!" Their voices rang out in unison.

Rose hugged the two girls, glad to see them for the first time in over a year. "Oh, you've grown so much! You're turning into young ladies, both of you!"

Elizabeth followed the two girls. She caught sight of Rose and nodded politely to her. "Hello, Rose."

Rose nodded back. "Hello, Elizabeth."

Christopher had no such reservations. Squealing in delight, he ran to Elizabeth, throwing his arms around her legs.

"Grandma!"

Elizabeth picked him up and gave him a hug. "Hello, Christopher. How big you've gotten! You're growing up so fast!"

Christopher beamed at the praise. As Elizabeth set him down, he ran toward Mary and Nadia, helping them collect their belongings, looking with particular interest at the brightly wrapped Christmas presents. He sulked briefly when they refused to let him carry the presents, insisting instead that he carry Nadia's suitcase.

"Do you have everything, girls?" Elizabeth asked, collecting her own suitcase and sack of presents.

Mary and Nadia nodded, hurrying to catch up with Christopher and Rose, who had made their way to the street to look for a cab.

*****

After checking into the hotel she had made reservations at before the trip, Elizabeth took Rose, Christopher, Mary, and Nadia out to dinner. Mary and Nadia skipped along, chattering to Rose about how neat Los Angeles was and how strange it was to be without a maid or a governess. Rose had wondered at the absence of servants—she had never traveled without them when she had been a member of the upper class—but Mary cheerfully explained that they were on vacation for Christmas, to spend the time with their families.

After they had arrived at the restaurant—one of the most expensive in Los Angeles—Rose finally had a chance to ask what the girls had been doing.

"So, Mary, Nadia, what have you two been doing? How's school?"

Elizabeth answered for them. "They've been living with me since John left for the war. They're going to a school near to home, and they have a governess who looks after them when I'm not there."

"Her name is Katie," Mary added. "She's nice, but she's not as smart as you, or as pretty."

"Well, thank you, Mary," Rose told the girl, laughing slightly. "I'm glad to hear I'm still appreciated."

The waiter came then, to take their orders. Once he had left, Elizabeth explained the situation to Rose.

"I tried to keep John out of the war, mostly for the sake of the girls, but I was overruled. I explained to those in charge that he was one of Anders best managers, but they just said that he could be replaced while he was gone. Even my explanation that he had two daughters and no wife didn't sway them. So, I offered to take care of the girls while he was gone. I just pray that he comes back alive."

"I miss him," Mary piped up. "I still don't see why he had to leave. He said that we live in a democracy, which means that we vote and have a choice about what we do, but he still had to go to the stupid war, even though he didn't want to. That doesn't make sense, so I guess that democracy is dumb. We went to Washington, DC, during Thanksgiving, and I still think democracy is dumb. If people are free, why do they have to do things like that? It's what my teacher calls...uh...hippo-crissy."

"Hypocrisy," Rose corrected, surprised at the eight-year-old girl's insight. Many adults couldn't see what Mary saw so clearly. Mary would be a force to be reckoned with one day, Rose realized.

"I'm scared, Aunt Rose," Nadia interjected, her lower lip trembling. "What if Daddy doesn't come back? Grandma's maid, Madeline, was married to a man who went over there, and he got killed last October, on Halloween. Madeline cried all the time for a long time. I don't want Daddy to die."

Her eyes overflowed. Rose handed the girl a linen napkin, trying to think of some way to soothe her.

"He'll be back, Nadia. Your Daddy's going to be all right. I've gotten two letters from him since he left. He misses you and Mary very much. He'll take good care of himself, and come back home."

"But he might not," Mary argued. "Like Madeline's husband didn't come back."

"Yeah," Nadia added. "Madeline loved him a lot, but he still died. Why do people have to die, Aunt Rose?"

"Well, Nadia...I don't really know. I guess it's what God has planned..."

"God didn't make the war. That was people." Mary was adamant in her stance.

"Sometimes, people do things that don't make much sense."

"Like go away and not come back." Nadia wiped her eyes. "Daddy's been gone for five months. I want him to come home. But he might not, because sometimes people don't."

There was a moment of awkward silence. Nadia stopped crying and started picking at her dinner again, while Elizabeth and Rose tried to think of something to say.

Mary finally broke the silence. "Aunt Rose, we saw _Lights_ just before we came here."

"Did you like it?"

Mary nodded. "Yeah. It was good. I want to be on Broadway, but Grandma says I'm too young."

"You can be in the school play, Mary," Elizabeth told her, unwilling to allow the young girl to embark upon an acting career on her own.

"I still want to be on Broadway," Mary grumbled. "Or be in moving pictures like you, Aunt Rose." She brightened. "You were the best one in the picture. You should have been the star. That other lady was too skinny."

Rose laughed at Mary's description of Nanette Hartman. In spite of her enjoyment of acting, she had been glad when they finished filming _Lights_, if only because she no longer had to deal with Nanette. Last she'd heard, Nanette had insulted a reviewer, who had written a scathing article about her. The starlet's popularity had gone down sharply after that.

"Thank you, Mary," she told the girl. "It was fun, making that picture."

"I want to be a Hollywood actress, too," Mary told her. "Can we see Hollywood while we're here?"

Rose glanced at Elizabeth. "I don't see why not," she told Mary, at Elizabeth's nod of approval.

Mary grinned in anticipation. "Are you going to be in any more moving pictures, Aunt Rose?"

Rose nodded. "Actually, yes. I'm going to start filming a new one in January. I have a small speaking role—where my lines will be on the screen—in a new picture called _The Endless Sea_. It's about the family of a man who died on the Lusitania. I'm going to play his oldest daughter."

Elizabeth winced. "How are you...dealing with the subject material?" she asked, looking closely at Rose.

Knowing that Elizabeth was referring to the Titanic, Rose shrugged, not wanting to discuss it. "I have to learn to deal with my memories sometime."

Elizabeth nodded, understanding. She hadn't been on the Titanic, but her only child had died in the sinking. She understood how Rose felt, and she, too, had had to learn to deal with her memories.

*****

The next day, Rose took them on a tour of Hollywood, accompanied by Julie, who was also going to play a small role in _The Endless Sea_. Mary and Nadia were openly impressed, especially when Rose took them on a tour of the studio where _Lights_ was filmed. After the tour, Mary was more convinced than ever that she wanted to be an actress. She begged Elizabeth to leave her in California with Rose, but her grandmother wouldn't hear of it. The girls were in her care, until their father said otherwise, and Rose had enough to deal with already, between caring for a child alone and establishing a career. She didn't need another child to look after.

On Christmas Day, Elizabeth, Mary, and Nadia joined Rose and Christopher at the boarding house, bringing the gifts they had brought from New York. Christopher squealed with delight at the toys his grandmother had brought him, far more than his mother could afford, and proudly presented crudely drawn Christmas cards to his mother, grandmother, and cousins. He had inherited his father's talent as an artist, though his young hands weren't nearly so adept at sketching as they would be later.

On Christmas night, they once again went out to dinner, this time inviting Julie and Christopher's baby-sitter, Eleanor, to come with them.

The day after Christmas, Rose took her guests to a place she had not yet been able to muster the courage to visit—the Santa Monica Pier. The weather had cleared, and hundreds of people, families, groups of friends, and individuals milled around the pier, eating, going on rides, playing games, and wandering along the beach. Rose looked at it all with a thrill of excitement mixed with trepidation. This was where she and Jack had planned to go—but he had died before they could ever do the things they had talked about, and so, instead of visiting the pier with him, she was visiting it with their son.

She soon forgot her trepidation, however, at the wide-eyed, delighted looks of the three children. They wandered around, each accompanied by a different adult—Rose had invited Julie to come along—and played games and watched people performing before meeting at the merry-go-round.

Rose laughed as she watched the three children climb onto the merry-go-round, vying for the best horses. Mary and Nadia giggled and waved as they went around, while Christopher stared at everything in wonder. He had never been on a carousel before.

When the ride ended, Julie convinced all of them to go on the Ferris wheel, and then it was time for the ride that Rose had been anticipating—the roller coaster.

She sat in a car with Christopher, while Mary and Nadia sat behind them. Elizabeth was reluctant to ride it at first, but Julie finally convinced her.

The three children shrieked and squealed with delight as the roller coaster whipped them around, while Rose threw her hands in the air and laughed aloud. Julie quickly proved to suffer from motion sickness, much to Elizabeth's dismay, since she sitting right next to her.

When the ride was over, Rose, Christopher, Mary, and Nadia climbed from their cars, laughing giddily, while Julie stumbled dizzily and Elizabeth dabbed at the mess on the front of her dress. Elizabeth gave the others a disgruntled look, but she had a twinkle in her eyes that betrayed the fact that she had enjoyed it more than she was willing to let on, at least until Julie had thrown up on her.

After Elizabeth had cleaned herself up, the six of them went down to the beach. Everyone pulled their shoes off and walked along, digging their bare toes into the sand. It was a cool day, but not cold, so Rose and Elizabeth allowed the children to go the water's edge to play.

Mary, Nadia, and Christopher shouted in delight as they splashed through the shallow waves, shrieking at the cold. Even in Southern California, the ocean was cold in the winter.

As they walked along, Rose caught sight of something farther up the beach—a horse stable, the same one Jack had told her about nearly six years earlier. Turning toward the water, she shouted to the children to come out, then took off in the direction of the stable.

A short time later, she emerged, riding a brown mare with a white streak on its forehead. The horse whickered as she guided it out on the beach. Rose had often ridden sidesaddle when she was a member of the upper class, but riding astride was a new experience for her. However, she soon found that it was easier than riding sidesaddle, and gave each of the laughing children a turn riding with her along the beach.

Christopher rode with her last, a little afraid of the horse, though he was soon laughing and enjoying himself right alongside his mother. When Rose came back to the group, she dropped him off, then guided the mare into the surf.

Clutching the reins, Rose urged the horse to go faster, splashing along the edge of the waterline. The others stared after her, but Rose paid them no heed. She could almost feel Jack behind her on the horse, and his words echoed in her mind.

_"And we'll ride horses, right in the surf. But you have to ride like a real cowboy, none of that sidesaddle stuff."_

_"You mean, one leg on each side?"_

_"Yep."_

_"Can you show me?"_

_"Sure."_

Jack had never had the chance to show her how to ride astride, but she had figured it out for herself. Jack had given her so much—encouraging her dreams, no matter how improbable; giving her the courage to get away from the life she had known before; and giving her their son, the light of her life. No matter how short their time together had been, she had never been sorry to have known him. Now, she was doing what they had talked about, fulfilling the dreams that they had made. She was living for both of them.

At last, Rose slowed the tired mare, turning her back in the direction of the stable. The others had wandered down in that direction, waiting for her. None understood why she had ridden off as she had, and none asked. Rose would never have explained it to them, anyway. Sometimes, it seemed like more than she could explain to herself.

As she neared the stable, she saw the others watching her. As she pulled the horse to a stop, Elizabeth took her camera from her bag and gestured to Rose stay still, photographing Rose's beaming face as she sat atop the mare.

Rose smiled for the camera, feeling as though someone's arms were around her when the picture was taken. Though no one could see him, she knew that Jack had been there with her in that moment.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

September 3, 1918

"No, Mommy!" Christopher whined as Rose tightened her grip on his hand, marching determinedly toward the school yard. "I don't wanna go to school!"

Rose sighed, pulling him along toward his classroom. Christopher continued to whine, resisting her attempts to bring him to school.

Her son was five years old now and ready to start kindergarten, at least in Rose's opinion. Christopher disagreed, and voiced his disagreement loudly all the way there. He had been very excited about the prospect of starting school, right up until it was time to go. Then he had begun to wail that he didn't want to go to school, and that Rose was mean and he wanted to stay with Granny Elly, his baby-sitter.

Rose didn't listen to his complaints. Christopher would undoubtedly enjoy school once he got there, but the boy was always afraid of trying new things until he actually got to doing them.

"It's going to be all right, Christopher," she assured him. "You're going to go to school with all these other kids, and make lots of friends and have lots of fun."

Christopher stepped behind her, clinging to her skirt. "No, Mommy!"

"Christopher..." Rose pulled him out from behind her. Kneeling down to his level, she looked him right in the eye. "You need to stop whining. You're a big boy now, and big boys don't whine about going to school."

Christopher shook his head. "I'm not a big boy. I'm still little."

"That's not what you told Grandma last Christmas."

The boy frowned. "Please, Mommy? I don't want to go to school."

"Christopher, you have to go to school."

"No!"

Rose stood, taking Christopher's hand. Even as he dragged his feet and continued to complain, she pulled him over to another mother with twins at her side. The little boy was crying, while the little girl had her hands on her hips and was looking around the school yard with interest.

The woman nodded to her as Rose approached, recognizing her from her moving picture roles. Rose introduced herself.

"I'm Rose Dawson, and this is Christopher. Looks like your children have some problems with separation anxiety, too."

"I'm Sarah Holt. You're right, they do—at least Arthur does. He's a bit afraid of starting school, but Clara seems to like the idea just fine."

"Maybe Arthur would feel better if he had someone to play with." Rose leaned down to her son. "Christopher, say hello."

"Hi, Clara." The little girl looked at him assessingly, as though deciding whether he was suitable friend material. "Hi, Arthur. Why are you crying?"

Arthur sniffed and wiped his eyes. "I'm not crying."

"Yes, you are," Clara interjected. "You're such a baby."

"I am not!" Arthur retorted, turning to glare at his sister. "You're the baby! You're five minutes younger than me!"

"Oh, five minutes!"

"That's enough!" Sarah spoke sharply to her squabbling offspring. "Why don't you two go and play with Christopher?"

The three children looked at each other, sizing each other up, before slowly leaving their mothers and heading for the playground. Every so often, each of them, even Clara, looked back to make sure their mothers were still there. Finally, they reached the playground, and soon forgot about their mothers and their fear of school, instead running and playing.

"Thank you," Rose told Sarah. "I wasn't sure I would ever get Christopher to let go of me."

Sarah smiled. "It's no problem. I've been through this first day of school twice before. I have four children. Arthur and Clara are the youngest. They're reluctant at first, but they eventually get over it."

Rose stayed near the playground, watching her son and the other children play, until a teacher rang a bell, signaling for the children to go to class. Once Christopher was inside his classroom, she finally left.

It was a big step, sending her child to school. It was hard to believe that Christopher was five years old already, that it had been over six years since the Titanic sank. She had come a long way since then.

In all those years, Rose had never seen her mother or her ex-fiancé, but she had given birth to a son of her own, and Mary and Nadia were like daughters to her.

She thought of a letter she had received in May. John had been severely injured in battle in March, but had survived and eventually been sent home. Rose was glad, not just for the sake of Mary and Nadia, nor even just for John himself, but because she cared more for him than she had ever admitted, even to herself.

She thought of John sometimes, but her life was in California now. She had been making great progress as an actress, working her way up through small roles, until now she was auditioning for a starring role. There had been several auditions for this role already, and she had managed to make it through all of them, until she was one of three finalists. It was different from any role she'd had before, that of the title character of a new moving picture titled _Hannah_, about a Swedish immigrant woman, Hannah Carlson, who was forced into a marriage she didn't want and eventually, many years later, escaped. Rose could easily empathize with the character, having been in a similar situation herself.

Checking the time, Rose realized she had to hurry, and rushed off for her final audition.

*****

Early in the afternoon, Rose went to get Christopher from school. Although the school was within easy walking distance of the apartment they had moved to that summer, Rose still didn't want him walking home alone. Maybe when he got a little older, but not yet.

She almost skipped through the streets to the school, filled with triumph. The audition had been held that morning, and Rose's two years of hard work had finally paid off. Of the three finalists, she had been the one selected for the role of Hannah Carlson.

It had taken a long time, but Rose was finally a star. The film promised to be big, something that would launch her burgeoning career. After two years of hard work and sacrifice, she couldn't be happier.

Rose met Christopher in front of the school. He had a little book with his ABC's in it and a brightly colored crayon drawing he had made. He raced over to her, shouting, "Mommy!"

"Christopher!" Rose picked him up and swung him around. "How was school?"

"It was fun! Me and Arthur and Clara played together at recess, and we got to draw pictures and start learning our numbers and our ABC's. And guess what, Mommy? I know more numbers than Clara. She thinks she's so smart, but I know more than her. I can count to a hundred, and she can only count to twenty."

"You are very smart, Christopher," Rose told him, setting him down and taking his hand. "Did you remember your ABC's, like I taught you?"

"Yep. Except I said U twice instead of W. The teacher says we're gonna learn to write our names! She's real pretty, Mommy, but not as pretty as you."

Rose laughed. "Didn't I tell you there was nothing to be afraid of? School is fun, isn't it?"

"Yeah! And I wasn't scared, Mommy. I was just trying to make you feel better. After all, I'm almost grown up now."

"Well, that's very nice of you, Christopher, trying to make me feel better. You'll be all grown up before I know it."

"I'm almost there."

"Oh, I don't know. You have a little ways to go, yet." Rose smiled and led him across the street. "You want to hear something neat?"

"Yeah. What?"

"I got a big part in a movie."

"You did?! Swell! Can I see it?"

"When it's made, yes, I'll take you to see it. It might be a little bit too grown-up for you, though."

"I'm almost a grown-up."

"We'll see when it's made. All right?"

"Okay, Mommy. Can we go get ice cream to celebrate? I'm hungry."

Rose laughed. "I don't see why not. Come on. Let's go."

Christopher cheered, and skipped down the street, holding on to his mother's hand.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

_Hannah_ was only the beginning for Rose. The film received rave reviews, and her performance was highly praised by critics and audiences alike. Before long, she had more offers than she knew what to do with.

Over the next few years, Rose's success and popularity grew. She starred in a dozen more films, playing characters ranging from the medieval to the contemporary, and achieved her greatest success in an early science fiction film depicting a ravaged future world. Her empathy for her characters, as well as her flexibility as an actress, served her well in her career.

As her popularity increased, catapulting her into stardom, Rose grew increasingly worried that someone from her old life would notice and come looking for her, but no one did. Though she was relieved, in a way she was also confused and a little hurt. She knew that she wasn't the only member of the upper class who had taken an interest in motion pictures, so it confused her that no one recognized her. Of course, she reasoned, it was entirely possible that her old acquaintances were so shocked at the fact that she had become an actress that they shunned her, or they did recognize her but didn't know how to approach her.

She received more than a little fan mail, and had gotten to the point that she needed someone else to read it and respond for her. Some weeks she received a hundred or more letters, and her busy schedule didn't leave her time to read them all. She sent autographed pictures to people who requested them, and saw to it that all letters were answered, but she often only had time to answer a few of them herself, those that touched her heart the most. She had directed the people who opened her mail to give special letters to her, as well as any written by John, Mary, or Nadia. In addition, she had also directed that letters received from certain members of her old crowd be given to her, but none had ever written.

A few letters were also addressed to Christopher, mostly from elementary girls who thought he was cute after he appeared in a movie magazine with his mother. Christopher enjoyed the letters, but still thought that most girls, with the exception of Clara, were strange, often annoying creatures to be avoided. Clara was the exception because she was a tomboy, chasing about with Christopher and Arthur instead of concentrating upon dolls and games considered acceptable for girls. Clara's mother often despaired that her daughter would ever learn to be a lady, but Rose accepted the girl, who reminded her very much of herself as a child. She had grown up, learning to balance her adventurous side with the demands of daily life, and Clara eventually would, too.

Despite the lack of contact from her old society, Rose enjoyed her life. She corresponded regularly with the Calverts, who had moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1921. She had considered going to visit them there, but never quite seemed to find the time. They were both busy with their separate lives, though Rose's descriptions of her acting career made Mary ever more interested in becoming an actress herself.

Rose eventually moved herself and Christopher from their apartment to a large, if modest, house near the beach. It was expensive, but Rose received high salaries for her work, and the fact that the house cost twenty-five thousand dollars made little difference. She was one of the most highly paid actresses in Hollywood, and she had always loved the beach, the crashing waves and salt air. It gave her some privacy, too, away from the fans who stopped to stare at her and ask for autographs. She liked the attention and adulation, but at times she needed to be alone. She continued to send Christopher to public school, in spite of her increased wealth and the fact that people would try to get close to Christopher to get to meet her. Private schools still reminded her strongly of her upper class background, and she didn't want her son growing up that way. His friends were of the middle and working classes, and she had no desire to see him become like so many of the boys she had known growing up.

Rose dated often, usually fellow actors, but the relationships rarely lasted for long. Christopher frequently disliked her boyfriends, and she simply never felt the depth of love and affection for any of them that she thought she should feel. She nearly became engaged on one occasion, but it didn't feel right, and at last she broke off the relationship. Someday, she thought, she might marry, but she wanted a husband that she could love with her whole being, not someone who simply shared in her career and her way of life. She would never again know a love like she had found with Jack, and she knew it—such a love came only once in a lifetime—but she wanted more than what many people had. She wanted a loving marriage that would last a lifetime. Too many of her peers married for the wrong reasons, or made mistakes that destroyed the marriages they had tried to build. Celebrity marriages were often difficult, and Rose wanted something deep and abiding. Though she was well into her twenties, she had yet to find it, and had no intention of marrying until she did.

In spite of this, Rose was happy with her life, so different from what had been planned for her when she was a girl. She had a career that she enjoyed, a son that she loved, and the kind of free, relaxed life that she had craved when she had been a member of the upper class. Life had its share of difficulties, but she didn't regret a minute of it. As Jack had told her so long ago, she was making each day count.


	20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

November 24, 1923

"Mom! Hey, Mom! The mail's here!" Christopher ran in the front door, splashing mud and water over the floor. It was raining heavily outside.

"Did you bring it in?" Rose asked, coming from the living room. It was late afternoon, and she was home for a change, between busy shooting schedules.

"Yep. I got two letters from girls."

Rose ruffled his hair, making him glare at her. "I take it you're learning to like girls, then?"

"They're okay." He shrugged.

"You'll learn to like them someday, Christopher."

Giving her a skeptical look, Christopher hurried toward the stairs, the letters in his hand. Rose laughed and shook her head. Her son was growing up. A year ago, at the age of nine, he had thought that all girls were silly, with the possible exceptions of his mother and Clara, but now he was beginning to consider that some of them might not be so bad, though he still wasn't thrilled by the idea of girls writing to him and declaring their love, as a few had done.

Sitting down on the couch, Rose began sorting through the mail. Catalogs...bills...a script to read over...a magazine...a letter from Mary...and a letter addressed in fancy handwriting. Curious, she picked it up, looking more closely at it.

It had been opened by the people who read her letters already, but the return address was still intact. Looking at it, she gasped, her face paling at the name on the corner of the envelope. Ruth DeWitt Bukater.

Hands trembling, Rose re-opened the letter, pulling out a sheet of plain white paper. In earlier days, Ruth had always used the best stationary, but she supposed that her mother's lot in life had changed considerably since Rose had "died" on the Titanic.

Nervously, she unfolded the paper, wondering what her mother had to say. Shaking her head, she told herself that there was nothing to worry about. She was a grown woman, twenty-eight years old, and certainly too old to be worried about what her mother thought. Still, for a moment it felt as though she was a girl again, trying to please her mother.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Rose looked at the letter, the neat, perfect handwriting unmistakable even after eleven years.

_My darling Rose,_

_I'm not sure what to say to you. How does one write a letter to a daughter suddenly returned from the dead? Yes, Rose, I thought you were dead. When Cal found no sign of you on the Carpathia, we could not help but assume the worst. After the ship docked, I checked the survivor's list to see if you might have been on it, perhaps with that boy, but you weren't there._

_Imagine my surprise when, two weeks ago, I was in the little bookstore near my apartment in Philadelphia and caught sight of your picture on the cover of a movie magazine. At first, I couldn't be sure it was you—you were supposed to be dead, after all. But there was no mistaking that beautiful face, or the sparkle in those eyes. I didn't have much money, but I bought the magazine and took it home with me, hoping against hope that it wasn't my imagination, that it really was you._

_It was, of course. I read about you—it was a long article. The article said that you had been a star in Hollywood since 1918, and that you were a widow with a son. There was a picture of your son, too. Christopher. He looks so much like the young man you chased about with on the Titanic, I'm guessing that he is his son. So you married your young man, and then lost him. I was shocked at first, but my sympathies are with you._

_I rarely go to the pictures, so I hadn't seen you before. It was hard to believe that you, my daughter, were a national icon, and yet I didn't hear of you until recently. Perhaps I didn't want to hear it. I always thought that if your life were different, you would have become an actress, or a dancer, or someone else in the spotlight. You always did have a flair for the dramatic._

_I still don't understand why you stayed on the ship with Jack Dawson, or why you hid from us when you were rescued. You are my daughter, my only child. I know now that you were unhappy with Cal, and rightfully so—he wasted no time in forgetting you after your "death". If he had truly loved you, he wouldn't have married just a year after the tragedy. He told me then that life goes on, and that it was time I forgot about you, after the way you had acted on the ship. I haven't seen him since._

_I do wish, though, that you hadn't hidden from me, but I will admit that I probably would have pushed you into the marriage with Cal if you had come to me. So, I suppose, in a way it was for the best. We are both better off without him—even without his money. I'm working now, not as a seamstress, but as a department store clerk, selling clothes. I do well enough at it, but then I always did have a liking for fashion._

_I love you, Rose, and I've never stopped mourning you. Now that I know you are alive, I hope that you will forgive me my actions of eleven years ago, and write back to me. If you do not, I will understand. I won't interfere in your life, Rose. Not this time. You've made a good life for yourself and your son, and you're doing what you always loved to do. You have more than I ever did, and I'm truly happy for you._

_Love,_

_Mother_

Rose clutched the letter to her chest, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. Mother! It had been so many years since they had seen each other. The last time she had seen Ruth, she had looked at her with disgust for her attitude toward the lower classes and walked away to find Jack. Now, eleven years had gone by. Jack was dead, and Rose was living in California, working as an actress and raising their son.

Rose wiped her eyes quickly, composing herself. There was no need to get so worked up. She wasn't a little girl, crying for her long-lost mother. She was grown up now, and she didn't need her mother anymore—but she missed her. How many times over the years had she wondered what Ruth would have thought about what Rose was doing, what she would have thought about her grandson? Her mother had longed for grandchildren, and had hinted to Rose and Cal more than once that they should start a family as soon as they were married. How could she deny her mother her only grandchild?

Quickly, Rose walked over to the writing desk, picking up a sheet of stationary and a small photograph of herself and Christopher, taken late in the summer. Sitting down, she tucked the photograph inside an envelope, and began to write.

_Dear Mother,_

_I was surprised to hear from you. I didn't know what had happened to you, or if you knew that I was alive. I had hoped that the people I had known in my old life would recognize me, but none have ever contacted me—until now._

_I've missed you, Mother, more than I can say. Although we didn't always see eye to eye, you are still my mother, and I often wondered what you would say about the life I lead, and about your grandson._

_Yes, Mother, Christopher is Jack's son, and Jack is dead. I won't say more than that, but Christopher has been the light of my life for many years. As you may have guessed, Christopher is named after Father. After his grandfather and father, actually. Christopher Jack Dawson._

_I have been working as an actress since 1916, but my first real success didn't come until 1918. Before that, I was nanny and housekeeper for a man I met soon after I left the Carpathia. I have since moved on with life, but we are still friends, and I write to him and his daughters often._

_I hope that you are well, and am glad that you have found work that suits you. I always thought you would be a good saleswoman—you talked me into buying enough things that I didn't want. You have a way of convincing people that they want what you want._

_It has been a long time, more than eleven years—but maybe now we could get along better. I would like it if you would write to me, and I will ask Christopher to write to you, if you want. Perhaps, if I ever go east, I might even see you again—or maybe someday you can come here._

_I love you, Mother. I know I rarely said it before, but it's true. You're my mother, and in spite of the mistakes you made, I realize know that you never did anything that you thought would harm me. You always had what you thought were my best interests in mind—even if they were really your best interests. Things worked out for the best, after all, and I have long since forgiven you for pushing me into the engagement with Cal. My best wishes to you._

_Love,_

_Rose_


	21. Chapter TwentyOne

Chapter Twenty-One

May, 1925

"Christopher! Are you ready to go yet?" Rose called, checking her luggage to make sure she had everything she needed. In an hour, they would be on a train headed east.

"I'm coming, Mom!" Christopher yelled back, appearing for a moment at the top of the stairs before disappearing again.

Rose sighed. At twelve, Christopher was much like she had been at that age—a chronic procrastinator. He could put anything off, especially if it was something he didn't want to do.

Her son had not been happy when she had told him that she had gotten a part in a movie that would require her to go to Europe for filming. He had begged to be left behind, but Rose was not about to leave the twelve-year-old to fend for himself, not even with the housekeeper to keep an eye on him. She had hired a tutor to teach him for the last month of school, and informed him in no uncertain terms that he was accompanying her, first to Philadelphia, and then to Scotland.

Christopher had been slightly mollified when she had pointed out that they would be taking a ship to Scotland—he loved sailing, though Rose had always found an excuse to avoid it—but he didn't want to leave his friends and spend the summer in a foreign country. For that matter, he also showed little interest in meeting his grandmother.

Ruth and Rose had written back and forth during the past year and a half, and had finally arranged to get together when Rose came east on her way to Scotland. Rose was nervous about the meeting, but was still looking forward to seeing her mother. They hadn't seen each other in thirteen years.

Christopher came down the stairs, his feet thumping loudly as he dragged a large suitcase behind him. "Do I have to go, Mom?" he asked, looking at her beseechingly.

"Yes, you have to go. It's high time you saw more of the world than Los Angeles, and you're too young to stay here on your own. Besides, your grandmother wants to meet you."

"Why does she want to meet me? Doesn't she have other grandkids?"

"Actually, no. I'm her only child, and you're my only child."

"How come she's never come here?"

"She can't afford to travel out here, and up until a year and a half ago she thought I was dead."

"She thought you were dead? Why? Doesn't she go to the movies?"

"Not very often."

"But why did she think you were dead? I knew you were alive."

Rose locked the front door behind them as the taxi she had called pulled up. "You were living with me. She, on the other hand, hadn't seen me in a long time, and she'd thought that I'd died right after the last time we saw each other."

Christopher looked at her in confusion, not understanding what his mother was talking about. Rose followed him into the taxi.

"I'll explain when we get on the train."

*****

"Rose! Rose, is it really you?"

Rose turned at the sound of someone calling her name. An older woman with graying red hair hurried up to her.

"Mother!" Rose moved toward her, then hesitated. She hadn't seen this woman in thirteen years. The last time she had seen her, she had told her to shut up and walked away without a backward glance. Of course, she hadn't thought then that she wouldn't be seeing her again soon.

"Rose...it's good to see you. Life has been good to you, I see. You're more beautiful than ever."

Rose smiled, a little embarrassed. At thirty, she had reached the age where directors where beginning to overlook her in favor of younger actresses. She still looked very young for her age, as she always had, but she certainly wasn't a teenage girl anymore. Still, she didn't lack for work, even if some of the roles she wanted were harder to get now.

"You must be Christopher." Ruth looked at the boy standing beside Rose. He was the spitting image of his father, making him unmistakably Rose's son.

"Yep, I am. Christopher Jack Dawson, at your service, Grandma," he told her proudly, giving an exaggerated bow that brought smiles from both his mother and grandmother.

Rose had told him the story of Titanic on the way east, describing her struggle to escape from a life that had been suffocating her. Christopher had pressed for more details, but Rose had been unable to bring herself to give them, not even telling him who his father had been, or that they had met on the Titanic. She had told him only that a young man had helped her to break free of her old life, but hadn't told him that the young man had been his father.

"You look just like your father," Ruth told him, drawing a questioning glance from Christopher. Rose caught her mother's eye, shaking her head slightly. Ruth nodded, understanding what Rose was trying to say. Christopher didn't know who his father was, and Rose wasn't ready to tell him.

Rose collected their luggage, handing Christopher his share. "How far is it to your apartment, Mother?" she asked, picking up her bags and slowly making her way out of the station. Even after thirteen years, she still knew her way around.

"Only a few blocks, though it may be a long walk with so much luggage."

"We'll get a taxi, then," Rose responded, looking up and down the street. Within moments, she had hailed a taxi and instructed the driver to load their luggage onto the back of the car. Ruth gave directions to her apartment, and they were on their way.

*****

Late that afternoon, Ruth and Rose were sipping tea in the tiny kitchen of Ruth's apartment. Rose looked around, the place reminding her uncannily of some of the places she had lived since she had left the upper class behind. It was a different town, a different building, but it was still much like the apartment she had first shared with the Calverts. No matter where she went, some things didn't change.

They had spent several hours getting reacquainted and letting Christopher and Ruth get to know each other, but Christopher had finally grown bored and asked to be allowed to explore. Rose had given her permission, although she cautioned him to stay within a few blocks and to return in time for dinner.

Now, Ruth looked at Rose over her cup. There was so much to talk about, but many things couldn't be said with Christopher listening. Now that he had gone out, they could speak more seriously.

"Rose...whatever happened to Jack? You said that he'd died, but you didn't say anything else. I know he was Christopher's father—the resemblance is unmistakable—but you never said anything else. What happened? Why doesn't Christopher know who his father is?"

"The Titanic happened, Mother. Fifteen hundred people died—and he was among them. I still can't speak of him without being overwhelmed."

"Rose, if you ever need someone to talk to..."

Rose shook her head. "Thank you, Mother, but...I can't," she whispered, walking to the window and looking out. Ruth started to question her further, then stopped, knowing that this was a chapter of Rose's life better left unsaid.

They never spoke of Jack again.

*****

Rose and Christopher stayed with Ruth for a week before it was time for Rose to cross the ocean to Scotland. Ruth was concerned about her daughter making the trip, but didn't try to talk her out of it. Neither of them had set foot on a ship since the Carpathia had docked, but Rose was at last facing her fears. Maybe someday, Ruth thought, she would be able to sail again, too.

Mother and daughter had grown much closer over the past week. Nothing could completely heal the years of separation, or the hostility that had existed between them during Rose's childhood, but they could try. Ruth was still not quite able to believe that her daughter was alive and well, and appreciated Rose's presence and spirit far more than she had when she had taken Rose for granted. Rose had missed her mother all the years they had been apart, though she had never mentioned it until Ruth had contacted her for the first time.

"Are you sure you're ready to get on another ship, Rose?" Ruth asked, waiting with her daughter and grandson in the train station. In about fifteen minutes, the train that would take Rose and Christopher to New York—and their ship—would arrive.

"I have to do it sometime, Mother, before the fear of it cripples me. It's been thirteen years, and I've never forgotten a minute of that journey on Titanic, but life does go on. I need to sail again, to see what is in the world. Christopher has never been outside of the United States, and has spent most of his life in Los Angeles. It will be good for him to see more of the world. Besides..." She hesitated. "This is the only way to get to Scotland, and that's where they're filming this picture. If there were another way, I think I would take it, but there isn't, and I...want...need...to do this part."

"What is this picture about, Rose? You never did tell me."

Rose turned to her mother, looking at her somberly. "It's about the Titanic, Mother. I'm playing a first class woman who becomes involved with a third class man."

"Rose!" Ruth looked at her in shock. "Are you sure about making this picture? It sounds so much like..."

"I know it does. But I need to do this. I've never really faced...what happened...and I think I'm ready to do so now. I've seen the script...it isn't as much like what I went through as you might think—but it is familiar. I'm going to face the past, Mother, because that's the only way to move on into the future."

They could hear the train approaching, the whistle sounding to warn people away from the tracks. Ruth hugged Rose.

"Good luck, Rose. I hope that this will be what it takes to overcome your memories."

"I hope so, too. Good-bye, Mother. I'll see you again on the way back." She hugged her mother for the first time in years. "I love you, Mother."

"And I love you, Rose, my daughter. Good luck...with everything."

"Thank you." Rose picked up her luggage, escorting Christopher onto the train. She turned back once to wave before boarding, looking for Ruth, but she had already disappeared into the crowd.

As the train pulled away, Rose saw a lone figure standing beside the tracks waving, her red-gray hair blowing loose in the breeze. Smiling, she opened the window and waved back, continuing on until the train moved around the bend and headed onward toward New York—and her future.

The End.


End file.
